People Hate AI Art
mccue.dev
mccue.dev
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.
The language evolved "slop" for AI art. There's no corresponding new term for good AI art. Pretending it's a minority that hates it is transparent cope.
That's a weird intentional example to make: spam-adjacent marketing content needs a stock art hero image, but a random dinosaur randomly inserted into a random post shouldn't be done at all?
Correcting your correction: a lot of people have terrible taste. It's not polite to say it, because it's condescending and presumptuous, but it's true nonetheless.
People with good taste will agree with TFA. Your Uncle who sends you cheesy postcards that make you groan; your grandma who watches reality TV; your coworker who always used to forward the whole company chain letters about poor Jessica who's 4 years old and dying of cancer; they will all clap enthusiastically at the GenAI T-rex. That's because they have bad taste and don't know better.
In other words, TFA is right. "Socially illiterate" is a very apt definition.
And in online communities, most often people just call it "AI slop" and express fatigue. It's very different form a brief period when people were excited by midjourney-generated images. I believe it just faded off just like any novelty.
I actually wrote a blog post about this, with concrete examples (and my manual fixes) taken from OpenAI when they demoed gpt-image-2 and from Karpathy of all people. It’s not a great look when the biggest proponents and ostensible experts still manage to make such a royal botch job of things.
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.
Clip art was created for specific purposes by humans, and continues to find use in those niches.
In case you were being serious ;)
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".)
Paying artists though makes this hobby an even more expensive one. And as I am not making any money, it's not like I am robbing anyone… (Another way to look at it perhaps?)
I don't know about that. Lots of people use AI to write text for them, saying "AI makes it sound better"—but the truth is, it doesn't make it sound better. It makes it sound a lot worse, and pisses off the people you want to read it. So does AI draw better than you could? Well, if you did the drawing, would it make your customer base hate it? Because AI art probably will. I don't know if that's "better".
I have done the same with artwork (although not exclusive I must confess). I draw a thing, upload it, and ask the AI to draw the same—perhaps adding, "Make it appear to be an ink and brush style perhaps akin to a mid-19th-Century illustration for a children's book."
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.
But it's absolutely lovely and heartwarming when my brother uses it to make environment art to go with a D&D campaign for his children.
It's hyper-polarized.
However, to understand their viewpoint you only need to think about what art originally meant: it is something with which the artist tries to convey something. It is - in is purest form - an expression of another person.
This is somewhat offset by "art" as a salaried job. But it's worth noting that this profession has generally been seen as a necessary evil to make ends meet.
Now AI art comes along and generally removes the humans expression from the equation. To the artist, this is like a complete perversion of what they consider core to their identity.
And artists have always been am incredibly loud minority - hence you hear their complaints a lot. Complaints which are understandable, but honestly are exaggerated. Esp. If you consider where AI will go from here over the next 10 years.
Edit: I think I misunderstood your intent, my original comment did raise this question. It happens that I'm sympathetic, but I thought the original post was overgeneralizing. I think people actually like generated images and they have their practical uses, they just can't take the place of art.
It's used when the generated art is not seen as "art" but more of a tool.
This obviously is an issue for artists which lose potential customers, but that's overstated because - as you pointed out earlier too - a lot of people never would've paid for the art creation anyway...
I hate that creators are over represented in society because they, you know, create popular culture. Also, why does video entertainment need to be so over-represented by theater/public performer types who have a flare for drama? Doesn't seem right. Like just stop with the drama people (or is that drama, people?).
True liberation is upon us! All are now equal to our over-represented thinker/creator/commentator types. AI brings 'the golden age of equality' Harrison Bergeron has prophesized. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEgOuZzjI8o We have learned we don't need to hold people back like that story. Just destroy any trace of the extraordinary by flooding everything with the mediocre and filling everyone/everything with AI induced loss of meaning and malaise. Finally, no more creator types interjecting meaning/intention into our culture. Just auto-generated culture for us please! Get drama people out of our drama productions! Musicians out of our music! Artists out of our art! And most of all extraordinary out of all of it! Only average by the average! Finally we are reaching the ideal world of Harrison Bergeron!
Thank you techbros for realizing yet another once thought only a parable science fiction story into our reality. It's really great getting to live through all this. Super glad.
Are you sure?
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.
Either way though, I love your crappy mspaint job on that image and I agree wholeheartedly with the point you were trying to make with it. I think people overall do respond more positively to crappy ms paint memes than the AI gen memes. It's worth thinking about why that is
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?
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 ...
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.
But everyone else’s craft? Fuck them. Those are obviously fair game.
Maybe we should focus more on how to use correct terms of why our language is changing?
> art (noun) - the making of objects, images, music, etc. that are beautiful or that express feelings
Gatekeeping the definition by excluding certain tools from being used in the creative process feels very silly to me.
but saying that "everyone hates AI images" is an exaggeration and outright false. we are a minority.
i will bring up tiktok, the "normie app". on there, an AI-generated series of videos (with a general quality as bad as you might imagine) gained lots of traction and, for one week, it became the fastest growing account. [0]
and "normies" liked it. i can tell you there was plenty of people genuinely watching that shitshow.
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
Compare the AI dinosaur in the article to the commissioned dinosaur. The commission has a vibe created by the eye expression and the glasses. I'd maybe call it chill. The thumb-up is present but it isn't leading the vibe, we might infer that it is something the dino is doing because he is chill. The gesture is only a tiny part of the image, almost an afterthought.
In the original AI image the dinosaur has its thumb up and seems to be really happy. Big smile, relaxed face. Thumb looms large in the foreground. That would be totally normal for this sort of prompt, I don't expect the AIs to have a lot of thoughtful variety on body language.
So what is interesting is getting the AI to generate the commission image - one where the thumb-up looks like a natural consequence of a broader scene - is actually quite hard. The prompter needs to think about all those details of what the character of the dinosaur is and such that make the gesture natural. It might be too hard to one-shot prompt. Image generators don't do that the last time I checked, they just provide what is asked for. Human artists (especially the good ones) will identify that as boring and start adding flourishes to keep people's interest.
People end up hoist on their own petard. "A T-Rex giving a thumbs up" isn't an interesting idea and a good human artist will - instead of following an instruction - give people what they asked for and slip some actually interesting elements in, which usually comes back to more body language and facial expression that is hard to describe.
Prompting via text alone is a really bad way to generate images. Ideally you want Canny Control to draw an outline of the image with elements in the exact locations where you want them. It's why comfyui is so great.
The ability to edit images and specify regions in the image for the prompt is a step in the right directions though. ChatGPT and Gemini have this.
That's not to say that this same person isn't the perfect target and consumer, as far as OpenAI is concerned.
Whether you agree with the author's take or not, it's relevant.
- 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.
"It's different from X" is no more meaningful than "it's the same as X".
Or maybe the defenses are AI generated, who knows.
The post doesn't even say "it's different from X". It just says "it's unfashionable," with no comparison or mention of history at all, as if this is the first time a new technology has ever been unfashionable immediately after its release.
> Just make your argument on its own terms.
I feel like my argument is obvious? The "unfashionable" period for useful-but-jarringly-new consumer-facing technology is common, predictable, and short-lived.
Anyway, my point isn't about predicting historical or cultural changes at some hugely complex scale. My point is that it's simple and predictable that useful new technology is most hated when it's new, but eventually tends to be adopted and embraced and normalized when it's had some time. That is, assuming it's affordable and truly useful.
If you want to bet against that happening in this case because you believe culture can't be predicted, then I would gladly take that bet, any amount of $ you want to wager, and let's meet back here in 5 years.
So yes, all things that I accepted first I hate now. The others I was born in, can't tell much about them. Maybe the people are right but accept the shit later.
But either way, I'm talking about *the present* which is the time we all live in. Opining that in the future maybe it will be different is like - sure? Not super relevant though.
Sure, but has that ever happened to a technology that was useful, convenient, affordable, etc.? Definitely gotta be rare. I think the utility tends to win in the end.
> But either way, I'm talking about *the present* which is the time we all live in.
Yeah that's why I didn't disagree with you. I think you're right about the present. But I wouldn't call my response irrelevant. It's pretty normal in a conversation to carry things forward and respond with your own thoughts.
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.
(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.
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
(I don't have my finger on the pulse of that nation, i'm afraid)
There is no using AI image generators _well_ if you care how people perceive you and your work.
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.
No, it's OK to care about the source/process. It is not irrational. You may disagree, but it is utterly human - as rational as things get.
But there aren't people for whom it is a positive, just those for which it fails to be a negative. It creates a severe negative impression or a neutral one.
That is a terrible tradeoff!
Inarticulate and indiscriminate hate towards “AI” is often a lack of education on the landscape of creative technologies that exist.
Not everything is an AI slot machine trained on scraped data.
But I’m sure you know all about that, and have no interest in delineating.
So are you enumerating, or...? Why am I doing this for you?
>Inarticulate and indiscriminate hate towards “AI” is often a lack of education on the landscape of creative technologies that exist.
I doubt that. It's more often the result of interaction with the AI products themselves than a lack of articulation, discrimination, or practice with "creative technologies that exist."
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.
Which is my point.
That is not a worthwhile risk - and thats the thing I am super confused more people don't have an intuitive sense of.
I'm not aware of anyone judging my taste in art and thinking less of me. If they judge, they do so silently.
> I recently wrote a technical post on my blog where I thought it would be kind of funny to add some genAI of me doing stuff, some people told me they stopped reading immediately once they saw those images… it’s making me reconsider honestly :-/
It was one of the many here that got flagged. Boy howdy this got spicy. But this is the situation I am talking about. Some might think its fine, but a lot of people won't so its usually not worth it unless you want to narrow your audience.
If you're "taking the time" to write something, adding an obvious AI image (without calling it out as such) is worse than having nothing.
I need to meditate on why I feel this way.
Like wtf? What world is this that you live in?
I don't need programmers pretending to do art while artists struggle to do anything.
It's like talking to cultists in here.
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.
People are confused because since the 1960s literally the CIA intervened to disrupt the transmission of meaning in art, because it was a field dominated by "subversives" who were opposed to capitalism and imperialism. They promoted meaningless post-modern art that was purely aesthetic. So decades later, starved of good examples, people have no idea what art is anymore.
A weird facsimile of art that has no soul is entirely uninteresting.
Certainly, clearly not
For now.
In the future, I despair that the next generations will adjust. Horrifying, but possibly true.
Obviously a false statement or the image would not be generated in the first place. You will need to significantly move goalposts for this statement to be truthful