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Comment by nitwit005 | Hacker News Reader

> For many, many websites this is going to be good enough.

It was largely a solved problem though. Companies did not seem to have an issue with using stock photos. My current company's website is full of them.

For business use cases, those galleries were already so extensive before AI image generation, that what you wanted was almost always there. They seemingly looked at people's search queries, and added images to match previously failed queries. Even things you wouldn't think would have a photo like "man in business suit jump kicking a guy while screaming", have plenty of results.

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Really? What stock service would have a selection of squirrels in a high school setting doing various math or other subject related things?

To think any/all combined stock services would be the end all is just unrealistic. Sure, someone one might have settled on something just because they got tired of scrolling (much like streaming video services), that does not mean they are happy with their selection. Just happy to be done.

Now, with generativeAI, they can have squirrels doing anything in any setting they can describe. If they don't like it, they can just tweak the description until they are happy. It's an obvious plus for them.

I never drank the kool-aid to be all gung-ho on this boom/fad, but I'm not going to be so obstinate that I refuse to accept some people find it quite useful. May someone make all the squirrel attending highschool generative art they want, but you can't tell me some stock place is good 'nuff for everything.

I searched Shutterstock for squirrels doing math. Here's a squirrel doing math: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/pensive-squirrel-d...

Yes, it's obvious that if your use case is obscure enough, or you need a ton of unique images, they won't work, which is why I said "largely a solved problem".

But image generation these days is simply image search anyway. Wether or not the image existed before is almost irrelevant.

I've never searched for an image from a stock vendor the way one would prompt a generative model. The stock vendor's metadata/keyword about its images were never that in-depth.

Also, you're implying that a generative system is so fast that it could create so many variations of your prompt to fill in the search results page in an acceptable time. That's a joke

AI is mediocre at a lot of things, but it makes a damn fine upgrade from stock photos. This is the art that’s going to get replaced by this tech, shitty low effort stuff. Images where you just need a picture of X because people are expecting a picture.

It’s the same with code. I don’t think software engineers will really be replaced, but small web dev agencies have a good reason to be nervous. Why would you pay someone to make a website for your restaurant when 3-5 prompts will get you there?

3-5 prompts doesn't get you a professional restaurant website.

The key word is professional. A good restaurant website begins with taking good photos of the premises and the food. AI won't come around to your business and take professional photos.

There's a lot of bits and pieces to a website for bookings, content management, menu updates, etc.

HTML templates and themes have been around for a long time. AI can basically spit out those templates and themes, which is great. But there's still a lot to do before you get to www.fancy-dining.com.

Most restaurant websites don't have photos of the food. Certainly not professional ones. Pan around randomly on google maps then zoom in and find the nearest strip mall, then go down the line checking the websites of restaurants there. Most are generic crap and you'll be lucky if the menu online is even complete. If they have food photos it's probably smartphone pictures taken by the owner's kid.

I do this a lot, far more than I actually go to restaurants, because I like adding small business details to OSM. There are a few that have their shit together but the overwhelming majority do not.

You've evaluated a tiny sample of restaurant websites and extrapolated to make claims about the overwhelming majority - in the millions, across the globe.

"Most are generic crap" doesn't mean restaurants aim for that benchmark when they decide to get a website.

I'm not sure if you're refuting the point I was making, which I'll clarify. "Restaurant website" could be a stand-in for any basic small business website. The claim was that AI threatens small web dev agencies who make small business websites. I don't think it will, as millions of small businesses want something better than "generic crap" or cookie-cut AI copy paste; AND we've had site-building services, social media pages, and template-driven approaches for a long time.

> AI won't come around to your business and take professional photos.

Neither will a web developer?

> There's a lot of bits and pieces to a website for bookings, content management, menu updates, etc.

Bolt.new can handle all these quite easily. Although I know several restaurants with very simple websites that have a few pics, a menu and their hours.

No, but you can do the photos and have the AI fix them or make suggestions about them.

> Companies did not seem to have an issue with using stock photos.

And now these image-generating models are giving us the equivalent of stock photos without the pesky issue of attribution or royalties. What a wonderful time to be alive.

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