Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

AI-Generated Images Discourage Me from Reading Your Blog

nelson.cloud

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 493 posts

Re: AI-Generated Images Discourage Me from Reading Your Blog

#281

Post by byronturncoat »

orangedog wrote: post #257
byronturncoat wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you write a blog post, yes that is creative. If an AI does it, it's no longer creative, it's derivative (by definition). Selecting AI images for one's blog is technically creativity (akin to decorating), but in the most hollow way possible. If you compare this scenario to photography and art, it's pretty clear you've not actually participated in that community

Somebody still has to prompt it, there is a creative task. Somebody still has to curate it, that too is a creative task. I was comparing this to when photography first came onto the scene not today, but I'm tired of the gatekeeping (which you retreated back into) which says this isn't art when as with every creative process, it is derivative and creative. People already splice together videos of generated clips. Is t…

If you use the definition of "creative" in that someone creates, sure, you can make your argument. Most people, however, include a level of imagination and effort in their qualifications of whether something is creative. An AI prompt does not meet the bar of "creativity" for most people. Curating AI slop similarly does not meet this bar. Your personal bar may well be on the floor, but that is not representative of most people, in my experience.

You're using your definition of "creative" and "art" interchangeably, which lacks nuance and respect for art. The reference to the arrival of photography similarly lacks nuance and respect for artists and art.

Art and creativity have a human element, they evoke emotions. As soon as you delegate the process to an LLM, you've disrespected that human element if you try to pass it off as creative or art. You can call it "gatekeeping" if you want to, but I see it as basic respect for other humans and human imagination and effort.

Re: AI-Generated Images Discourage Me from Reading Your Blog

#282

Post by palmotea »

debugnik wrote: post #48
wateralien wrote: post #21

AI-generated images discourage me from interacting with any entity AT ALL. Bar / restaurant posters, events, shops, anything. Because it makes the brand appear lazy. And in a weird way "anti-human". I don't have a better word than that.

Yesterday I encountered AI-generated food photos on a menu for the first time. I immediately felt grossed out before even realising why. Their generated focaccias didn't even look like food, just off-putting trypophobia triggers.

> Yesterday I encountered AI-generated food photos on a menu for the first time. I immediately felt grossed out before even realising why. Their generated focaccias didn't even look like food, just off-putting trypophobia triggers.

Also, that's just misleading. When I see pictures of food on a menu, I expect them to be real pictures of an example of the actual dish I'd get (perhaps made a little more carefully with more of an eye towards presentation, but the actual, real item).

AI-generated food photos on a menu are dirty lies.

Re: AI-Generated Images Discourage Me from Reading Your Blog

#283

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

singleshot_ wrote: post #272
zmmmmm wrote: post #8

To me there are different motivations to include imagery and some of them are just fine with AI generation. If the imagery actually goes to the substance of helping to illustrate or explain the actual content then it seems very superficial to reject it based on how it was generated. In fact it is kind of stupid to insist someone slavishly draw something by hand that could have been done an easier way. The problem com…

> In fact it is kind of stupid to insist someone slavishly draw something by hand I believe they used to call that "art."

No, they used to call that "illustration."

The belief that we were living in a golden age of hand-made visual beauty before AI arrived is obvious nonsense.

The golden age of illustration ended when Illustrator arrived. After that, everything became a mess of cliches and clip art, culminating with Google's Material Design, where everything looks simultaneously soulless, heartless, and bland.

AI brought some colour back. A lot of the imagery is kitsch, but illustration has always tended to kitsch, so nothing really changed there.

This is the irony of the anti-AI purity hunt. Most human-made work is crap. It always has been.

AI hasn't suddenly sent the quality of creativity off a cliff. It's commoditised the low standard of most previous hand-made work and made it easier to access.

The high end - the real talent - still stands out. But most people can't afford it, and even fewer people appreciate it.

Re: AI-Generated Images Discourage Me from Reading Your Blog

#284

Post by chasing »

JSR_FDED wrote: post #31

I just sat through my first fully AI-generated presentation. The content was as bland and straight down the middle as possible. The slides were all generated by a standard design - a mix of text blocks, bullets, fonts, colors. The whole thing was packed with information and completely worthless. I’m 100% convinced that before too long we’re all going to be allergic to this low effort crap, and craving actual people w…

Yeah, I have told people that I’m fully capable of typing things into ChatGPT or Claude myself. What I need from people are their own warty ideas. Sometimes real ideas are blurry or incomplete. Or have open questions. Making your own presentation can be a personal exercise in clarifying your thoughts. And sometimes the fact that ideas are half-baked or tricky is exactly why you’re having the meeting in the first place…

I guess if you’re in an environment where the emphasis is put on busy-work and formalities, then you’re going to get this sort of shit. Deeper organizational problem at that point, though…

Re: AI-Generated Images Discourage Me from Reading Your Blog

#285

Post by fidotron »

jerkstate wrote: post #120
warpspin wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. If it's actually an illustrative part of the text, include it, even if it's AI generated. Not everyone who can write can do graphics. If it's only decoration, leave it out. No matter whether AI, stock or custom made.

not everyone who can think and solve interesting problems can write prose well, but there's still a lot of complaining about AI-generated text.

One of the most tedious ideas of recent years is the "great engineers are great writers" meme, unsurprisingly spread by writers.

Re: AI-Generated Images Discourage Me from Reading Your Blog

#286

Post by orangedog »

byronturncoat wrote: post #281
orangedog wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somebody still has to prompt it, there is a creative task. Somebody still has to curate it, that too is a creative task. I was comparing this to when photography first came onto the scene not today, but I'm tired of the gatekeeping (which you retreated back into) which says this isn't art when as with every creative process, it is derivative and creative. People already splice together videos of generated clips. Is t…

If you use the definition of "creative" in that someone creates, sure, you can make your argument. Most people, however, include a level of imagination and effort in their qualifications of whether something is creative. An AI prompt does not meet the bar of "creativity" for most people. Curating AI slop similarly does not meet this bar. Your personal bar may well be on the floor, but that is not representative of mo…

Yeah I just don't think there is anything special about "art" and I don't think there is some specific definition for what art is. People create that's art. You can put different amounts of time and effort into it but I think it's just as lacking in imagination or respect for human creativity to distill this down to he worst case.

If somebody spends hours prompting various resources and curating it, is that then "slop"? I don't think it is, it's just as sustained a creative effort, regardless of the tool used. You are saying that the 10-20 minute clips that people have put together of generated vid of various series (like Star Wars) isn't art? There are entire stories told using this method. It's not art?

Re: AI-Generated Images Discourage Me from Reading Your Blog

#287

Post by chasing »

dominicrose wrote: post #246
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #131

I’m inclined to agree, but not as much because the image was generated with AI but rather because it’s rare for such images to exhibit taste. They feel like the visual equivalent of gilded twinkies, which is offputting. Selecting a stock image doesn’t have this effect, even if it’s not related to the post. Even the most unremarkable stock image has the fingerprints of its artist, and the choice itself can reveal thin…

If an LLM has any taste, it comes from its training data.

LLMs don’t have taste. Almost definitionally they can’t. They can parrot what they think other people think is tasteful, but they cannot have taste.

Re: AI-Generated Images Discourage Me from Reading Your Blog

#288

Post by superjan »

When I was working on a post recently, I rediscovered that it is actually fun to draw. Much more fun than debating with an AI tool to generate an image for me. And given the time I already spent on the subject matter, the effort was not that much more. I can recommend drawing on paper. You can correct mistakes after scanning.

Re: AI-Generated Images Discourage Me from Reading Your Blog

#289

Post by michaelt »

orangedog wrote: post #202
Gigachad wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a blog, real images signify you spent a lot of time creating the post, it was very important to you, and you likely made sure the details in the text were accurate. While AI images in a blog signify low effort high volume posting where the text likely was just copied from AI without any care.

I don't think it signifies any of those things. This is all new stuff. Some people have decided to offload image-creation to machines because what they care about is the text. This stuff you say it signifies, it says more about you than them.

Some use of hero images by bloggers is a deliberate style choice, to emulate the norms of professional journalism.

A lot of traditional news outlets have a style rule that every article must have an image. Look at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news https://www.nytimes.com/ https://www.economist.com etc - every article has an image. Even a report on something highly abstract - "BP reports record profits" - will be illustrated with a photograph of some BP-branded fuel pumps. Stories on things like cybersecurity and inflation get generic images like snippets of blurry computer code, banknotes etc.

Some bloggers feel their blog is improved by adopting the style of professional journalism, and (among other things) put an image on every article. Even if for a programming blog good lead images are hard to come by.

Interestingly, professional journalism organisations often have pretty strict codes of practice about images, and photoshop use. They have rules on everything from illustrating one rocket launch with a photo of another to posing the subjects to colour-correcting images to creating multi-image collages. So I don't imagine we'll see many AI-generated images in traditional news outlets any time soon.

Re: AI-Generated Images Discourage Me from Reading Your Blog

#290

Post by Hoasi »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #103
sunrunner wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's about what you created But you didn't create anything in this case. Not the images at least. Which then casts doubt on the rest of the writing in said blog post.

But you didn't create anything if you used Photoshop... You didn't create anything if you used synth and autotune... You didn't do any scientific research if you used a calculator. You didn't do anything if you just piped together two programs. I've heard it all before. Gate keepers wanna keep the gate as long as they can.

I’ve heard this gatekeeping argument before, but it’s not convincing. Nobody prevents anyone from doing anything with any tool of their choosing; nobody prevents anyone from writing (or doing art or any other business, really). There is no gatekeeping or democratization of art needed either. If you just prompt an image, it has zero value, and if your blog is just a copy-paste from any LLM, what’s even the point?

Prompting an entire article is a waste of time for everyone. Just outsource all thinking already. Oftentimes a generated illustration signals that. Laziness, lack of discernment. Low consciousness, cheating. (Not always of course, sometimes you just want an illustration for your blog, no big deal! Use AI!) That said, writing doesn’t need to be streamlined like a production line. People immediately feel when you haven’t put the work.

This point against “gatekeepers” is a very lazy argument.

And the same can be said about taste. Taste comes from learning and learning is practice. No wonder people are put off by generated “content”.

Post reply on HN