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 comes when the imagery is placed as a false value signal. If it is designed to send a signal of "this content took a lot of effort to produce because an image that would be hard for a human to make is attached to it" - but the image was generated without that effort, then it's basically a lie and insult to the reader.
There’s also a class of “detailed agent written technical blog” that’s you can just scan and get the shape that it’s long paragraphs, tables of statistics, and dry LLM writing. You notice the blog has one or more such posts a day.
It’s a turnoff immediately if someone shares what their agent wrote.
It also has happened a few times they contain a fair number of misrepresentations and mistakes.
Public shaming and rejection are probably the best way to teach people it's wasting people's time and disrespectful. If you couldn't otherwise write it yourself for whatever reason it's best not to until you can.
Getting very tired of people vomiting up "if you couldn't be bothered to write it, I can't be bothered to read it" ad nauseam. At least admit that you're virtue signalling from a political (NOT ethical, stop lying to yourself, it's not noble, it's just your opinion) position.
This hasn’t been my wife’s experience at all. She manually writes all her content, but uses AI images as sizzlers for the scenes (fan fic for popular shows). Short of getting the actors together for a million bucks, she’d be hard pressed to make these scenes a reality. It’s also supposed to be aspirational, like “what if the tv cast got back together for another season hey?” I think the average person just doesn’t really notice.
She’s had to figure out where the line is though. She tried using ElevenLabs to dictate her scripts, thinking it’d make things more convenient for her fans, and that lost her subscribers because they seemingly disliked the more obvious use of AI.
"I’d rather see a shitty Microsoft Paint drawing as opposed to some AI image."
Interesting because I'm seeing tons of YouTube channels using AI generated stick figure animations with AI voice overlays to trick people into thinking it's not AI generated.
Would photography discourage OP from reading a blog? Should I hand-paint my imagery? If I am the type of person that would use a camera, then maybe I'd be the type of person to hire a ghostwriter.
My my knee jerk reaction is to agree, I really hate the obvious looking AI images, though I suspect ultimately it comes down to having good taste.
As much as I like to be on the anti AI bandwagon, for which there are plenty of good reasons. Some people use the tool (like any tool) well, to compliment their work.
Eg. this author uses great images to accompany their articles (except for one which is obviously AI), its hard to know if they are real or not but they support the text. https://tuhat.net/@jesusrrodriguez/
Regarding businesses, I think the use of bland stock images made most corporate sites awful years ago. AI is just accelerating and making it easier for the rest of us to create the lazy heartless "content" that has been so common from the corporate world.
The same goes for your business. Your AI “art” isn’t eye catching, at first glance it’s lazy. A longer glance it’s unsettling. We’re heading for a really boring period in graphic design.
What I read , my western ego is so big I want to place my opinion everywhere possible .
Image is content , ai can generate art level images and an obvious slop . To read or or not is absolutely up to reader , not someone’s entitled opinion .
I find them very interesting and they make me more likely to remember your blog. I was reading that Gas Town post yesterday and despite all the backlash about the whimsical world and the ai images being sloppy and wrong, they still stuck in my brain more than anything else I’ve read this year.
The author say they’d prefer Microsoft paint images but actually I don’t think this is true of most audiences. People have the ability to make terrible paint images for decades and they’ve never caught anyone’s attention in a positive way, it’s not going to start now.
OP’s blog of white text on black background will be forgotten quickly. If I visit it again, I will have no recollection of ever having visited. I’m not saying they need to use AI, but to oppose AI with the opposite —- minimal design or even intentionally crappy design — will not have the intended effect of communicating “this is quality human-authored content”, it will just be forgettable.
I need everything to be 100% ORIGINAL and AUTHENTIC.
AI Generation is obviously slop: unforgivable and death-sentence worthy.
Stock photo? Please, I NEED YOU TO TAKE A PHOTOGRAPHY AND DESIGN COURSE FOR YOUR BLOG.
Go to art school or else I won't even consider looking at your website.
> I'd rather see a shitty Microsoft Paint drawing as opposed to some AI image.
So spot on!
And, with that Paint drawing, it'll probably illustrate what you mean and at the same time we establish some kind of trust; I'll know this is not just mere AI slop.
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 comes when the imagery is placed as a false value signal. If it is designed to send a signal of "this content took a lot of effort to produce because an image that would be hard for a human to make is attached to it" - but the image was generated without that effort, then it's basically a lie and insult to the reader.
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.
There’s also a class of “detailed agent written technical blog” that’s you can just scan and get the shape that it’s long paragraphs, tables of statistics, and dry LLM writing. You notice the blog has one or more such posts a day.
It’s a turnoff immediately if someone shares what their agent wrote.
It also has happened a few times they contain a fair number of misrepresentations and mistakes.
Public shaming and rejection are probably the best way to teach people it's wasting people's time and disrespectful. If you couldn't otherwise write it yourself for whatever reason it's best not to until you can.
Getting very tired of people vomiting up "if you couldn't be bothered to write it, I can't be bothered to read it" ad nauseam. At least admit that you're virtue signalling from a political (NOT ethical, stop lying to yourself, it's not noble, it's just your opinion) position.
This hasn’t been my wife’s experience at all. She manually writes all her content, but uses AI images as sizzlers for the scenes (fan fic for popular shows). Short of getting the actors together for a million bucks, she’d be hard pressed to make these scenes a reality. It’s also supposed to be aspirational, like “what if the tv cast got back together for another season hey?” I think the average person just doesn’t really notice.
She’s had to figure out where the line is though. She tried using ElevenLabs to dictate her scripts, thinking it’d make things more convenient for her fans, and that lost her subscribers because they seemingly disliked the more obvious use of AI.
"I’d rather see a shitty Microsoft Paint drawing as opposed to some AI image."
Interesting because I'm seeing tons of YouTube channels using AI generated stick figure animations with AI voice overlays to trick people into thinking it's not AI generated.
These are all symptoms of the adjustment period following a disruptive technology.
Eventually it'll be perfectly normal to use AI-generated content (and use AI to summarize it), and nobody will bat an eye.
AI-generated images discourage me from interacting with any entity AT ALL. Bar / restaurant posters, events, shops, anything.
Your one-short-paragraph blog post with a shallow personal preference discourages me from reading your blog.
There was zero depth to it.
Human slop is slop too.
Would photography discourage OP from reading a blog? Should I hand-paint my imagery? If I am the type of person that would use a camera, then maybe I'd be the type of person to hire a ghostwriter.
AI images are not photography.
My my knee jerk reaction is to agree, I really hate the obvious looking AI images, though I suspect ultimately it comes down to having good taste.
As much as I like to be on the anti AI bandwagon, for which there are plenty of good reasons. Some people use the tool (like any tool) well, to compliment their work.
Eg. this author uses great images to accompany their articles (except for one which is obviously AI), its hard to know if they are real or not but they support the text. https://tuhat.net/@jesusrrodriguez/
Regarding businesses, I think the use of bland stock images made most corporate sites awful years ago. AI is just accelerating and making it easier for the rest of us to create the lazy heartless "content" that has been so common from the corporate world.
The same goes for your business. Your AI “art” isn’t eye catching, at first glance it’s lazy. A longer glance it’s unsettling. We’re heading for a really boring period in graphic design.
What I read , my western ego is so big I want to place my opinion everywhere possible .
Image is content , ai can generate art level images and an obvious slop . To read or or not is absolutely up to reader , not someone’s entitled opinion .
who?
> ...please avoid AI-generated images.
Do what the f__ you want to. I don't care if you use AI or not.
I find them very interesting and they make me more likely to remember your blog. I was reading that Gas Town post yesterday and despite all the backlash about the whimsical world and the ai images being sloppy and wrong, they still stuck in my brain more than anything else I’ve read this year.
The author say they’d prefer Microsoft paint images but actually I don’t think this is true of most audiences. People have the ability to make terrible paint images for decades and they’ve never caught anyone’s attention in a positive way, it’s not going to start now.
OP’s blog of white text on black background will be forgotten quickly. If I visit it again, I will have no recollection of ever having visited. I’m not saying they need to use AI, but to oppose AI with the opposite —- minimal design or even intentionally crappy design — will not have the intended effect of communicating “this is quality human-authored content”, it will just be forgettable.
I need everything to be 100% ORIGINAL and AUTHENTIC. AI Generation is obviously slop: unforgivable and death-sentence worthy. Stock photo? Please, I NEED YOU TO TAKE A PHOTOGRAPHY AND DESIGN COURSE FOR YOUR BLOG. Go to art school or else I won't even consider looking at your website.
Heh you write like someone from 4chan. That's not what the author is saying though.
>Please, I NEED YOU TO TAKE A PHOTOGRAPHY AND DESIGN COURSE FOR YOUR BLOG. Go to art school or else I won't even consider looking at your website.
Did you read tfa?
>I’d rather see a shitty Microsoft Paint drawing as opposed to some AI image.
> I'd rather see a shitty Microsoft Paint drawing as opposed to some AI image.
So spot on!
And, with that Paint drawing, it'll probably illustrate what you mean and at the same time we establish some kind of trust; I'll know this is not just mere AI slop.