Santa Cruz restaurant changes logo after flurry of negative reviews for AI art • Hacker News Board

Re: Santa Cruz restaurant changes logo after flurry of negative reviews for AI art

#21

Post by ragall » Sat, May 02, 2026, 5:07 PM UTC

collingreen wrote: post #14

ragall wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A logical error is not the same thing as a practical error.

Is this equivalent to defending the broken clock as right twice a day?

Another way to put it is that Logic deals with cause and effect situations with a correlation of 1. It's possible to have a correlation of 99%, which would be a logical error, but still a very useful bit of practical knowledge.

In this case, I would definitely agree that people that act sloppily in one aspect of business will almost always do the same in other aspects. More generally, I'd say that most classical logical fallacies are actually useful rules of thumb.

Re: Santa Cruz restaurant changes logo after flurry of negative reviews for AI art

#22

Post by joshribakoff » Sat, May 02, 2026, 5:08 PM UTC

This isn’t just a story about an AI logo, it’s a story about locals who feel the business they frequented was replaced by someone trying to make a quick buck.

And an owner who believes that means the locals want to “destroy” her business.

Im not choosing a side, but it doesn’t seem like they have a strong future with or without a logo. That’s just Santa Cruz culture, very aggro surfers.

Many of the surrounding restaurants are very immersed in local surf culture and put a great deal of resources and effort into their decor.

Re: Santa Cruz restaurant changes logo after flurry of negative reviews for AI art

#23

Post by recursive » Sat, May 02, 2026, 5:09 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #8

sameers wrote: post #2

There are so many automated processes in a restaurant, starting from machine pressed building materials that took a livelihood away from honest human woodworkers and carpenters. Someone please help me understand why this reaction isn't just the latest form of Ludditism (Luddism?) that'll naturally fade away as time passes.

Even worse is it's just a small percentage of her patrons --but they have made it their temporary life-goal to change the restaurant in their image. Like, if you don't like the logo or how they went about creating the logo, go to a different restaurant and let others enjoy it without your jealous 1-star reviews. Those same people are probably mad "desktop publishing" took the livelihoods of people who drew things by…

1 star reviews, wherever they exist, are always left by a small percentage of patrons. And jealousy has nothing to do with it. Despite all the marketing budgets and hype wave, you can't force people to tolerate this stuff.

Re: Santa Cruz restaurant changes logo after flurry of negative reviews for AI art

#24

Post by Krasnol » Sat, May 02, 2026, 5:13 PM UTC

slabtickler wrote: post #15

a lot of people on here are going to instantly defend any AI use in spite of the specifics but the over-abundance of blatant diffusion model art in cost-cutting nowadays, in places where it isn’t even expected, is ridiculous. marketing is by no means the peak of artistic endeavor but genai logos for small business street taco vendors, coffee shops reek of laziness. never mind the inundation of places like Etsy and Re…

To be honest, that coffee idea sounds really good to me.

Not having to deal with the currently still trendy coffee culture and getting exactly the same coffee every time sounds perfect. Or let's say, it's perfect if the product tastes good.

Re: Santa Cruz restaurant changes logo after flurry of negative reviews for AI art

#25

Post by npinsker » Sat, May 02, 2026, 5:14 PM UTC

aezart wrote: post #11

huhkerrf wrote: post #4

> One remaining one-star review on Google reads, “Their logo is AI generated, if they can’t make the effort to create a logo they definitely won’t make the effort to cook good food.” I'm not sure what it's called, but there has to be a name for this logical error.

Seems valid to me. I won't read articles with model-generated header images, because it's a good indicator the rest of the text will be slop as well. For a restaurant, a slop logo gives the impression that the owner doesn't care about the details and has no taste. Beyond that, the use of generative models is a big moral issue for a growing number of people.

Yes, this isn’t a logical error at all. If you don’t have taste in one area — actually, it’s even worse, you’re not even aware of your own lack of taste — why would I trust your taste in another area?

Re: Santa Cruz restaurant changes logo after flurry of negative reviews for AI art

#26

Post by seanhunter » Sat, May 02, 2026, 5:18 PM UTC

feverzsj wrote: post #18

How out of touch these owners are.

Yes. “A lifelong dream has been crushed by a group of locals,” You don’t have some kind of built-in entitlement to success just because it’s your dream. Yeah it’s unfortunate you didn’t succeed, but if you don’t win your locals over, you’re going to struggle to run a restaurant.

Re: Santa Cruz restaurant changes logo after flurry of negative reviews for AI art

#27

Post by mc32 » Sat, May 02, 2026, 5:21 PM UTC

recursive wrote: post #23

mc32 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even worse is it's just a small percentage of her patrons --but they have made it their temporary life-goal to change the restaurant in their image. Like, if you don't like the logo or how they went about creating the logo, go to a different restaurant and let others enjoy it without your jealous 1-star reviews. Those same people are probably mad "desktop publishing" took the livelihoods of people who drew things by…

1 star reviews, wherever they exist, are always left by a small percentage of patrons. And jealousy has nothing to do with it. Despite all the marketing budgets and hype wave, you can't force people to tolerate this stuff.

Sure but it’s not organic -it’s organized by malcontents. They’re not voting on the food or hygiene but on their purist perception of what and how a logo should look and be made. If they were blind they couldn’t give a rats ass.

Re: Santa Cruz restaurant changes logo after flurry of negative reviews for AI art

#28

Post by BashiBazouk » Sat, May 02, 2026, 5:24 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #8

sameers wrote: post #2

There are so many automated processes in a restaurant, starting from machine pressed building materials that took a livelihood away from honest human woodworkers and carpenters. Someone please help me understand why this reaction isn't just the latest form of Ludditism (Luddism?) that'll naturally fade away as time passes.

Even worse is it's just a small percentage of her patrons --but they have made it their temporary life-goal to change the restaurant in their image. Like, if you don't like the logo or how they went about creating the logo, go to a different restaurant and let others enjoy it without your jealous 1-star reviews. Those same people are probably mad "desktop publishing" took the livelihoods of people who drew things by…

As someone who grew up in the pre-computer graphic arts, in Santa Cruz ironically enough, it was not paste but hot wax. Though in the early days of computers in graphic arts, all the graphic artists were just happy to not have to deal with photo typesetters anymore...

Re: Santa Cruz restaurant changes logo after flurry of negative reviews for AI art

#29

Post by manquer » Sat, May 02, 2026, 5:25 PM UTC

Krasnol wrote: post #24

slabtickler wrote: post #15

a lot of people on here are going to instantly defend any AI use in spite of the specifics but the over-abundance of blatant diffusion model art in cost-cutting nowadays, in places where it isn’t even expected, is ridiculous. marketing is by no means the peak of artistic endeavor but genai logos for small business street taco vendors, coffee shops reek of laziness. never mind the inundation of places like Etsy and Re…

To be honest, that coffee idea sounds really good to me. Not having to deal with the currently still trendy coffee culture and getting exactly the same coffee every time sounds perfect. Or let's say, it's perfect if the product tastes good.

There are few companies in this space . There is one right in Palo Alto - a demo store from the equipment manufacturer https://yummy-future.com/

Coffee is not that much different from Starbucks or any other big chain or even many indie places.

Re: Santa Cruz restaurant changes logo after flurry of negative reviews for AI art

#30

Post by tracerbulletx » Sat, May 02, 2026, 5:26 PM UTC

beardyw wrote: post #16

I understand and even agree with these sentiments, but in the back of my head is a voice which says "artists have been copying and even stealing from one another since there has been art - what is it that makes this different?"

I would prefer a vibrant marketplace for human artists more than I want cheap design to be available for businesses. I want thriving passionate creative people cooking the food, making the art, writing the articles, and being able to pay their bills off of it. Maximum efficiency is not a goal I care about at all costs, we already have enough efficiency to house, feed, clothe, and educate everyone. And efficiency to what end?

Obviously what I want isn't that important in the grand scheme of things, but its why I don't support using AI for anything creative over and above the ethics of companies capturing all of the value of everyone's past artwork, which also is soulless and aesthetically disgusting, much more so than an artist spending 1000s of hours learning from studying other art and synthesizing a similar style.