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Comment by VladVladikoff | Hacker News Reader

I’m at the point where if I see an AI image at the start of an article I just back right out. It would be so much better if the author just didn’t include an image at all. What did this image actually add to the content of the post? If you’re just doing something for the sake of doing it you’ve lost the plot.

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I've been saying this for a while now. They could just have put an Alberta landscape shot or something else that's actually aesthetically pleasing and relevant, and doesn't feel as trashy as the picture actually in the article.

I genuinely don't understand this trend of slapping AI slop on top of your article. I've even seen good articles do it.

An image signals that the author put time and energy into the article and that they have an eye for detail. Even if it's an AI generated image because the author still had to pick a fitting image.

If that's the image they picked, I question their taste.

Two posters above found that the signal was more like “get ready for a gen-AI article filled with vague woolly sentences”.

Wasn't there anything relevant available? Screenshots of the new tools in a before/after collage perhaps?

I disagree. Especially with AI, it’s far too easy to generate and insert an image with no time, energy, or eye for detail.

Authors do it because it supposedly leads to better engagement, shows up bigger on social media, and breaks up the text. But generally, unless the visual content meaningfully adds to the text content, users will largely ignore it.

An AI image signals that the author did not put time and energy of their own in, they had the AI make it up. It's a yellow flag.

If you generate an image that contains a bunch of low-quality gobbledegook, the signal that it sends is that you have zero eye for detail. Look at any single part of that image, and you will notice how little detail there actually is.

I am 100% convinced that you are either trolling or that your comment is explicitly made in bad faith.

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