Discussion
Who else is noticing AI-generated illustrations in the real world appearing at new hairdressers, ice-cream parlors, kebap shops, butcheries, everywhere?
Sure, there's no reason why AI slop should be confined to the online world. But as long as I will still be able to distinguish AI signs from non-AI signs, I will consider these AI stores/restaurants as inferior quality. Is that wrong?
@mellifluousbox I have seen AI generated "sacred" images proudly (?) being displayed in smaller churches in Italy... But that doesn't really make me believe any less in the legends, zero is already zero;) But sure, it is horrible just from a cultural appreciation point of view.
@mellifluousbox AI slop is indeed sadly everywhere in my Italian region. I noticed that shops even sell "Italian brainrot" merch 😩
@mellifluousbox yup. went to a tourist shop on vacation last week, and it's not like I expected quality or anything, but the quantity of AI slop on T-shirts, postcards, etc. was quite disheartening
@mellifluousbox Yeah its kinda gross, and you are not wrong!
@dansup @mellifluousbox Well if they put better effort into the prompts it wouldn't be as gross, but nope, people put in sloppy prompts, they get sloppy results.
@mellifluousbox In general I think you are correct.
In a more nuanced reflection I think it depends. What kind of AI was used? How was the AI used? How much was a Hunan actually involved in the process?
But for 99.9% the answers will be "closed source model with massive copyright infringement and the worst business ethics ever", " just asked to create an nice looking picture", "For nothing more than typing a simple promt and printing the result"... So you would be correct again.
@mellifluousbox I am scoping a new coffee shop over this.
I find it disgusting, that a our local legalized gambling monopoly, which advertises that part of their profit goes to support art and artists and this sort of 'general good', started to use AI slop in their advertisements, instead of... well, actually supporting artists.
@mellifluousbox Yesterday I saw two posters for concerts by local bands next to each other.
The first was the worst kind of MS Word abuse I have seen in a very long time. Uncounted differing fonts and sizes, colors, pixelated images etc.
Next to it was a smooth and shiny one obviously generated by AI.
I never would have thought that the day would come were I'd praise the Comic Sans ugliness of the first one.
On your question: I do. But I politely (!) tell them because many still aren't aware.
@kraftner Good point. I also think that if machine-generated "perfection" becomes commoditised we will start to value human mistakes and small sloppiness (in the original meaning) here and there more.
There's an interesting analogy in The Expanse series. Plastic surgery is available to almost everyone so the rich people use their imperfections as a status symbol.
I've felt this way about my extremely imperfect attempts at photography for awhile
@mellifluousbox why? The quality of the shop should not be measured by it‘s logo I would say!?
@pfefferle
That's the point of logos?
If i know nothing about a Shop, a bad Logo is a bad sign
@mellifluousbox
@pfefferle @mellifluousbox If they think it's ok to skimp on their marketing material budget, what else do they think it's not worth paying for? 🤔
@thomasp @mellifluousbox you could also look at it the other way around: they are focusing on their core business rather than investing heavily in marketing.
@pfefferle @mellifluousbox To put my thought another way: if they think AI art is "good enough", what else (hygeine, health and safety) do they think is "good enough" too?
@thomasp @mellifluousbox maybe it is even a sign of quality: if a kebab shop with a bad AI-generated logo is still in business, the kebab must be really good!
@pfefferle @thomasp @mellifluousbox well, quite often the little eateries that do not have a polished look and for instance have bad lighting and furniture and signage can hold phenomenal food. A matter of focus of the owner. I would argue that there is absolutely no need to change those places with AI slob, not in logos, marketing or art on the walls. If you think you can switch this to fake artificial shit, are you going to do that to the food to?
@pfefferle I don't know. It feels like you're defending this practice a bit too much. I guess the question I'm probably asking is: Does a kebab shop (good or bad) even truly *need* a high-contrast, eye-popping, AI-generated sign/flyer? Or isn't an AI sign maybe somewhat of an indication that as a potential customer I'm dealing with a bottom-quartile kebab?
@mellifluousbox @pfefferle @thomasp I mostly agree with this BUT there have been restaurants for decades that put up crap photos of their menu that in no way resemble what one is served.
I avoid them too.
@mellifluousbox @pfefferle
it's a distraction and IMO at least superfluous. Which I dislike, esp. when shitty.
@mellifluousbox @thomasp it’s not that I don’t understand your point, and it’s completely fair that you see it that way. But I simply don’t think it can be generalized like that.
"Don't judge a book by its cover" (at least not always)
@pfefferle the thing is, there are all sorts of things on the cover of a book that are useful for judging a book. having to read a book in order to judge whether or not i want to read the book would be very inefficient.
@pfefferle @mellifluousbox @thomasp AI books are everywhere and a bad sign of rot and scams, too. Sadly this idiom no longer works.
@pfefferle @mellifluousbox A fair counterpoint. Depends heavily how long they've been in business.
@thomasp @mellifluousbox do you think a shop or restaurant with both bad marketing and bad quality would have any customers?
@pfefferle @thomasp @mellifluousbox
Bro I live in the US, that is literally our basic business model
@pfefferle @mellifluousbox Not alone, but I do think that there is some connection between how much effort people put into their logos, branding etc. and their work. For some things it might also be inverted, like the uglier the better, but I don't think it is irrelevant.
@pfefferle I guess it should not matter but psychologically it still does and I think I'm clearly not alone here. You just attribute more value to a clean Apple logo than to the cheapest AI stuff that apparently didn't even go through one review loop.
@mellifluousbox @pfefferle @kraftner That one review loop I think is the key. If they feel they need some bright signage, but haven't noticed it makes their wares look wonky, what makes you think they pay much attention to the product itself. If the product stands on it's own merits, they could have skipped paying a designer, skipped paying a slop merchant, maybe entirely skipped even paying a printer.
@mellifluousbox @kraftner sure, but my local kebab shop does not have Apple’s budget for a logo of that quality 😊
I think this is more about taste and design judgment in general than AI specifically. There were already plenty of bad logos long before AI came along, and I still bought my kebab there anyway.
@pfefferle @mellifluousbox @kraftner I'd rather someone have basic hand drawn or word processed zero-frills logos than use genAI slop. It's ugly and tacky, it's wasteful, there was no need for it 3yrs ago and there's no need now.
It's a choice.
Not having budget isn't an excuse. There are many free and cheap routes that aren't #AIslop
@pfefferle @mellifluousbox @kraftner it’s as simple as: AI commoditized a lack of taste and design judgement.
@pfefferle @mellifluousbox To me it is less about the aesthetics but about the seriousness of work.
If the logo for the kebap shop is Word art or Comic Sans I don't care because someone might still have put effort into it and just likes the look.
But if the AI-generated image of the mushroom in the dish looks like a cockroach or the poster for the nail studio has 6 fingered-people that just proves that you didn't even look at it once which hints at general sloppiness for me.
@mellifluousbox yes, all over the place. No, not wrong.
@mellifluousbox yes, all over the place. No, not wrong.
@mellifluousbox (Photoshopping was bad enough to be honest. But it was somehow restricted to elites who could pay for it. Install filters and now genAI are "for the masses" and thus appear everywhere. I've heard some describe it as "semiocide".)
@mellifluousbox Not wrong. I started noticing these a couple of years ago in Japan. It seems very limited, though. When I see one of them, I am definitely disinclined to patronize such a place.
@mellifluousbox
Please explain people there
@steltenpower This feels like an uphill battle. Bricks-and-mortar margins are probably already razor thin and any marketing budget these stores have during their startup phase is probably below 500€. The subsidised prices by GenAI companies must look very attractive for these types of SMEs right now.
I worry for junior designers who previously probably did these tasks on a part-time basis to learn the ropes of design to move to larger projects.
@mellifluousbox @steltenpower advertising does take money, so do safety precautions. If they skimp on one why wouldn’t they skimp on others? Food just a little out of date, equipment clean but not sanitized, employees that aren’t certified, insurance that didn’t get paid. They cut corners and I don’t trust that.
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