I first dabbled with AI image generation back in 2022 and sprinkled a few such images throughout my worldbuilding project. It was easy to look past all of the flaws with the idea that it was nothing more than a novelty. And I never cared nearly enough about my worldbuilding to pay anyone for artwork of it.
Now that I look back at it, those images are obvious slop, which I’ve grown to dislike as much as the next person. But recent comments I’ve seen here and on other sites have made me wonder if my brain has rotted in the same manner that makes some boomers fall for AI slop. There will be videos where the use of AI is not very noticeable to me, but not with deceptive intent. Maybe an illustration to get the point across or a subtle two-second animation. Commenters will very passionately point it out. To be honest, I don’t see the creator either paying for the equivalent human work or drawing anything better themselves.
Does it really just look that bad? Is it an issue with what AI and the companies that sponsor it stand for? Theft of real artists’ work? Does it change at all if the images were generated locally with the creator’s own hardware and resources? What about upscaling images, like I do with old wallpapers so that they look better on new monitors?
I assume what I’ve just said will attract downvotes, but that was my thought process and I do want to understand where other people draw the line and for what reasons. Should we limit it to quick-and-dirty illustrations, pure novelty, upscaling existing images, a model that only incorporates work if the artist consents, or something else?
I’d rather see MS paint illustrations than GenAI images.
The worst problem, to me, is that it pollutes our “environment” that is, our cultural environment, our pool of input about the world, with potential corruption, inaccuracies, at worst the intensification of falsities, stereotypes, and mediocre conceptions. Even if you don’t detect them in an AI image, they may be there. A real world image contains details that humans have not already preconceived, and diluting that with the bullshit of what humanity thinks is reality but which may or may not be, will have a greater long run cost than we can imagine.
with potential corruption, inaccuracies, at worst the intensification of falsities, stereotypes, and mediocre conceptions
you’re saying this in a world where 99% of people wig out if they don’t see white Jesus (or their culture’s equivalent lie)
Now they’ll have video proof that Jesus was white. And had 7 fingers.
There are different reasons against AI, it depends which ones you consider more important.
A) taking jobs away from artists - you can argue that if you would never have hired an artist for this anyway (throw away character portrait for a D&D game) then it’s justifiable.
B) That AI was trained on stolen content. - depends on your definition of stolen, this is the area that makes me think twice.
C) Environmental reasons - I try to generate stuff locally if I use it, but you still have the impact from the model being trained originally.
It doesn’t necessarily look bad, but it has a certain look. Once you start to recognize AI’s tells you can’t unsee it.
I don’t think individual use matters that much. It’s slop, but if it doesn’t matter then slop is fine. It’s when institutions and companies and governments are using generated images instead of hiring an artist that it becomes a problem; an artist didn’t get paid for what is essentially stolen work and now that slop will be crammed down our throats.
Basically NEVER
When the model isn’t built on stolen licensed works and built/run in a way that isn’t in conflict with the community where the data center resides seems like some basic requirements to meet.
Morally: never. It’s built off stolen property and destroys the world with its ecological consequences.
Practically: as a placeholder. A real human will always outperform an AI, but if the intent is not quality but to just get the gist across, then it works in a pinch.
To be clear, it’s not just the quality of the final product that matters. An AI-generated product is unmaintainable and uneditable. You can’t make variations of a generated product. It’s technical debt at its most fundamental
as a placeholder
And even then, don’t use that placeholder as the basis for further work. It kills creativity and makes your work worse.
When teaching people how to spot AI images.
Never
Honestly my main issue is that this gives more power to the corporations who can steal any content and then sell it as a subscription.
Even local generative AI is ethically sus, but as an occasional pirate I don’t have any moral high ground. I don’t really mind as long as its user in a way that doesn’t harm the jobs of the artists (which it often does).
Quality wise, realistic images are often sloppy but I too am starting to fail to notice sometimes, which doesn’t feel good if it’s something that can misinform me. Recently I played for some hours with an anime based model, and I have no chance telling what is real there. But it still really drew home the fact that it lacks some of the artistic expression. No matter how much you write in the prompt you can’t control all the details with intent like the artist does, and you’re at the mercy of the model on anything that you leave to interpretation. And if the model doesn’t have enough data on what you want it will just break down. So it only works as long as you have a relatively vague idea and don’t care about the specifics. Which is why I also think it can’t replace anyone as long as the audience cares about intent being there and being consistent (which again often they don’t care).
Anyway, I consider these models to basically be creating interpolations of existing art now.
I don’t know, I struggle to find a single use.
Maybe to make a quick funny thing with seven fingers to send to your friends…? But even then the downside is that these images get sort of normalised and I personally wouldn’t do it. At least not now that the novelty is way over and there are fewer funny obvious errors.
As a person who can’t draw a circle to save my life, for RPG-characters I thought I’d find use for it, but I actually prefer doing a horrible childish two-colour-crayon-sketch at the table rather than bring in a portfolio of images made artificially. My horrible sketches will become part of the lore we kaugh about.
I know that at work when we had out summer greetings sent out from the CEO, anything anyone talked about was how it was so clearly written with AI and it for sure didn’t inspire confidence or pride in the work place as it was meant to do. The same with some project image very clearly AI generated, which led to the whole project being less reputable in the organisation at a ground level and having fewer qualified people conscript to it willingly.
And any project where the creator or images are generated, I’ll trust far less than ones lacking images altogether.
I’m sorry if I couldn’t answer your question properly.
Edit: I may have to go back to gboard - at least it could spell for me…
There at no other android keyboards that work well enough. I always end up back on gboard too.
No.
Even if you manage to find a niche valid reason, even if you train on exclusively your own content, even if you run it on your own hardware powered by your own solar panels, it’s still normalising the technology for everybody else who won’t use it like that.
I think it makes sense as temp assets in my field (video games), but ideally, you get a real artist rather than use AI. Temp can help visualize the intent, but a real artist will always out perform a machine on creativity, style, etc. I’ve used it for image quality upscaling—I don’t know how to do this on my own, but I guess I could learn.
There’s likely other cases that are “visual” gen AI but maybe medical (pattern recognition?) or gap filling for something like architecture (like first pass treatments). I’m completely guessing there.
The cost to generate an AI image is something like 60 ml of water (shot glass?) or 1kWh (like watching 2 HD movies via stream).
Sure, yes, at scale, this stuff is bad. I would say the worst element is corporate profit of public goods: these machines were made with mass theft, and therefore, In my opinion, should be nationalized or universalized. In this reality, that is basically a joke.
At an individual level, and a personal level, I know driving my car is bad, especially if it runs on gas. Running ACs in the summer is also bad. Leaving the water running while shaving is bad. So is a myriad of many things I do. AI use is completely optional, but it’s not an automatic marker of anyone’s moral standing, at least not more than the other cases I mentioned. You can also offset these costs as a way to be more morally just.
For me:
- Use for temp art
- Hire a real human
- Offset as best you can.
One of my favorite shows is the Good Place because it highlights how impossible it is to live a perfectly good, moral life in the modern world. I think ascetics who aren’t using the internet or posting on social media are probably closest. I’m sure as hell not.
I think this is the correct take.
The two uses in my personal life I’ve seen AI used for is easy flyers, and rpg character art.
The problem with AI for personal use isn’t usually the easy one (water/electricity use, intellectual property, etc.) for a single, noncommercial user. Artists aren’t being harmed if you weren’t going to drop the price of a car on character art for all your DnD NPCs, or if the alternative to using AI to make a flyer was spending an hour in canva to do the same thing.
There are other issues. AI-generated character art can have a certain “soulless” quality that I personally hate, which is why I never use it. AI-generated flyers look unprofessional, or sometimes can include visual design elements that give an unintended conclusion or vibe.
Hypothetically, any time you’d not be able to have a person do it.
Thing is, all the current models out there are built on stolen talent. So you have to decide if that matters to you.
Me? I don’t hate generative software per se. I think it does fine for the exact cases you mention.
AI images have this uncanny valley effect to them. They are unsettingly off, because they are not human. I think they are fine for idea generation, but you will lose credibility if you use them elsewhere.
