But that doesn't matter, because the game theory they outlined is directionally right. The cohort of people who hate AI art is relatively small. But the cohort of people who love it is even smaller. People can generally spot it, and most people are indifferent to it.

Having said that: I think it's also true that people are generally indifferent to any of the "casual" art in online writing and publications. It's overused and a crutch.

A hero image at the top of a post: good, can be great, do it, make sure it's not AI. But like, a random dinosaur giving a thumbs up in the middle of the post? Don't do that at all.

This is a phase that will pass.

There will be (and already are) legitimate artists who leverage AI as a creative tool like any other medium/tool (Photoshop, cameras, paint brushes, etc). I respect them even if others immediately dismiss anything AI related.

I also like to use AI as a sort of filter on pictures that I took. Make a photo look like a drawing, for example. It is also incredible for UI mockups and saves me a lot of work.

So, while I could do incidental art for a project I am working on, AI is going to do better than I could. (I have uploaded sketches of mine though and had it improve it. Is that still shit of me?)

I once paid an artist friend $1K (or was it $2K?) to do a set of playing cards for an iPad game I was working on. It was during the Great Race-to-the-bottom era of iOS apps such that $0.99 or $1.99 was all I was probably going to be able to ask for it.

Did I make back the $1K? Why, not at all. I think I made maybe $100 or something like that. (Never mind the unpaid time I invested in writing the app.)

Retired now, poorer, but still wasting my money on projects that will cost me, and ultimately make me nothing in return.

I guess I don't feel ashamed leaning on AI to give me something to put in the corner of the PCB I am about to order from JLCPCB. (The PCB that, after a number of iterations, I will have spent hundreds of dollars on and will never see a return when it goes "to market".)

I'm reading "people don't care so it doesn't matter" in the replies, in that case can we agree to just drop all unneeded illustrations altogether when it comes to technical articles?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filigree

It's published by a publisher I trust in the genre, but it has a certain amateurish/primitive look to it. Personally, I found the style charming. Overall the game seemed really well received at first.

Recently, I learned they were successful enough that they had released a new DLC. I had also returned to find the game review bombed to hell. Apparently, the team decided use AI generated imagery for the new DLC. Not only did it kill off the character and charm the games graphics had previously had. People were unhappy.

I do feel bad for them. I don't like the new art style, but I wouldn't review bomb their game for it, as long as that part remained fun.

Lo, I'll have to wait until the tides of public opinion stream to my advantage. Or find my own proxies to voice my disdain.

I'm more than just a rabble-rouser.

Not saying AI is blameless, but I'm seeing a trend where the problem is clearly more about social media and how it enables every one of us to live in our own algorithmically fed bubble. Like, look at this:

> If your initial reaction to reading that and seeing [an AI image] is some variation of "ughhh" or rolling your eyes or "fuck this guy" congrats. You are normal.

> If it wasn't I cannot stress to you enough that you are an outlier. Whenever you pick key art for a presentation or blog, your business, or whatever - if you use AI art you give a clear signal that you have low social literacy. You immediately associate yourself with a huge bundle of negative emotions because people, largely, hate this shit.

See how confident the author is that their own view is the normal, socially acceptable one, and they "cannot stress enough" that any other view is a social outlier. This has all the same "If you don't care about what's happening in Gaza you're not normal and nobody likes you" energy, except at least people are actually dying in Gaza.

And of course it should make perfect sense for the author because, unironically, everywhere they go online they will see people talking and thinking like that! Largely thanks to those profit-driven corporations and their massive data centers.

I don't know what's the solution but this can't go on forever ...

Maybe we should focus more on how to use correct terms of why our language is changing?

Yes, you can do image-> text on existing styles, but something always gets lost in translation.

Midjourney probably has the best baseline, and --sref is a really easy way to differentiate

(Not accusing that they are)

Recently Blender removed Anthropic from the sponsors while taking Nvidia and Google's money. This is the epitome of the nature of the anti-AI trend: If you just don't make it obvious nobody cares.

Approps of nothing, I think art is worth your while to make an investment of effort. I found Drink and Draw and made acquaintance of another maker from a local makerspace(not mine) and an artist. I wasn't technically adept but I want space to learn how to draw and they treated beginner(or at lease those three) with good vibes even though I was a clear beginner.

- Cars (expensive toys for the rich that endangered normal ppl and spooked horses)

- Recorded music (similar complaints about it not supporting artists)

- Bicycles (commonly called the devil's work)

- Novels (morally dangerous)

- Headphones / Sony Walkman (anti-social)

I remember when chatting online was nerdy, anti-social, and uncool. Now celebrities casually talk about sliding into each other's DMs.

The initial "it's unfashionable" backlash to new, useful, and threatening technology has been so repetitive and predictable throughout history that it's almost passe now. Most people aren't students of history of course, so history will repeat itself.

But that also means the second act will repeat, not just the first act. And the useful technology will almost certainly become fashionable and accepted once it's more commonplace.

Whether you agree with the author's take or not, it's relevant.

Here's the really funny thing. Crafting the prompt to make the original image probably took more time than that crappy mspaint job.

I'm being serious, think about it. What are the chances that image came out of the first prompt fed to the AI? How much time did it take to craft the prompt to get that weird uncanny valley trex with a thumbs up?

Compare that to googling "trex", grabbing an image. Finding the thumbs up emoji. He didn't even bother removing the white background layer! It probably took two minutes tops to make and I enjoy it more.

People make wrongly future predictions looking at current output ie first encounter but fail to count for improvement over time. 3 years ago the biggest topic was that llm are not going to replace coders as they are not good but over time as llm have improved that has changed from llm are coming for coding jobs. It has been the same for solar, batteries and ev's etc which were not economical in their location at the time they might have done the research but they are still stuck in that first encounter while prices have dropped so much for the tech that economics are completely different.

All you get are these pieces of glossy junk, yet they expect you to believe it’s some form of creative work. "People with minor cases of major brain damage", indeed

People generally hate low effort AI slop.

Irrational people hate art made with AI as a tool.

"By invading the territories of art, photography has become art's most mortal enemy." - Said someone who nobody knows because it's a long and dead opinion.

Most people probably don’t care.

I bet there were painters in the 1800s who talked about how people hated photographs and how they were uncanny and creepy compared to paintings.