A lot of people in the comments say that the supposedly better examples in the article are still “horrible” because they can tell they’re AI and point to things that the AI did “wrong” and a human artist would do better.
That may be true if you’re working with a top of the line artist, but in my experience the average freelance designer online is significantly worse than AI. I’ve worked with dozens of budget friendly designers on Fiverr and consistently get way worse results than I’ve gotten from AI models. Will a great human designer produce better output than an AI? Maybe, but a small local event or business probably won’t have the budget to hire them or know where to find them. It’s cheaper, faster and easier to use AI to generate something that’s good enough for their purposes.
People also point out all the little flaws in the “good” examples and cite them as obvious tells that they were AI generated. I think it would be interesting to see if people could reliably distinguish between AI generated flyers and human made flyers. Sure, sometimes it’s obvious like when the AI adds those weird, cartoony people. But if the model is told not to create designs like that and stick to the styles used in the second half of the article, I expect people would have a much harder time distinguishing the human designs from the AI designs.
The blog also mentions, several times, that it wasn't the goal to be indistinguishable.
I think it's actually a feature when people can recognize it as AI.
Why would someone want it to be unrecognizable as AI? What is the reason people want to hide AI usage ? (other than when "cheating" in studies or examns or such, obv)
AI generated visuals are becoming a signal of A) low-effort, B) and/or unwillingness or inability to spend resources to genuinely present your product or brand.
Both of these communicate that I will probably not get a good value for my money when buying your product or service.
If a business markets itself with these AIgen posters, you get wildly different responses from different groups.
boomers that spend all their time on Facebook will think “this is such a nice pretty poster” and be oblivious to the fact it is even ai. Even if they knew it was ai they don’t care.
Young people will think it is low class/trashy. Some hate it because it’s ai, others hate it because the poster is ugly/busy/confusing.
> Both of these communicate that I will probably not get a good value for my money when buying your product or service.
This is where I stop following. Businesses should focus on where they differentiate, and I really don't care how they generate signage if I can read it. I don't get anything by them paying Banksy to make their menu instead of having Gemini generate it. And if there is any connection to getting good value, it's the inverse: I'm more likely to get good value when I'm not paying for fancy advertising. See: every drugstore that puts generics alongside brand names for cheaper.
Yes, generics are better value, but at least from the big drugstores and pharmacies they still have clean design - they just make it clear what their active ingredient is in what dosage, mention the branded equivalent, and then put the standard drug label on it, and that's about it.
The worst generative AI posters and restaurant menus I'm seeing from newer small businesses do not instill the same feeling that I'm getting generic-like value. To keep with the drug analogy, they feel like the combo pills you find somewhere in the back of a gas station which combine 10+ random supplements to help with 20+ different symptoms. Especially for new restaurants where real reviews are limited, menus with terrible AI generated food drawings really give me the same ick - that they might not be providing any good value at all.
However, i do admit that part of this is also that i live in an area where there is tons of competition for most cuisines I'm interested in, so I can use menu quality as a differientiating factor in the first place. If enough places around me were using sloppy AI menus i would probably ignore it.
You're free to ignore signals of cheapness if you want, as well as not care about quality. If you want generic restuarant food I guess you can go to McDonalds instead of a burger place; it's all the same value to you I guess.
You're using rhetoric to try and change the subject -- you're making a jump from "good value" to "lack of quality", and painting them with the same brush.
I'm saying I don't particularly value businesses that focus on things that are low impact for me. I'd rather my barista focus on sourcing good beans and making good coffee than paying someone to do a fancy custom menu for them. We see this all the time when we visit new areas. It's considered naive to follow whatever looks most glitzy -- every seasoned traveler will tell stories about all the tourist traps, and how the real quality is the hole-in-the-wall place all the locals gather.
What I'm saying is we shouldn't conflate quality with marketing and advertising, which is what posters are. You seem dead set on doing so anyway, and I'm not sure why.
> You're using rhetoric to try and change the subject -- you're making a jump from "good value" to "lack of quality", and painting them with the same brush.
Correct, I am. I apologize if I gave the impression I was debating. I will absolutely "conflate" quality with marketing and advertising when it's the only signal I have about a company and I don't have the resources to research further. For example, if I'm in a new place, out and about, and looking for somewhere to eat, and only have an hour or so, yes I'm choosing the place without AI slop ads unless I have additional information - especially if the food is generically AI generated. I'd love to have time to deeply research all businesses and companies and ignore ads entirely but that's not always practical.
Me learning of your company on Instagram or similar through an AI slop poster ad that looks exactly like the 10 preceding monster-truck-rally AI slop poster ads is a bad impression to me. From comments I've seen on similar Instagram ads, I'm not alone.
"AI = low effort" is becoming a heuristic regardless of the assertion's absolute accuracy. It's probably not going to die soon as long as it keeps appearing in scammy or low-margin business places.
AI-generated visuals aren't the first to go through this. I'd say the early-to-mid 90's "desktop publishing" went through this too - as soon as everyone could make ads and flyers cheaply with Word, everyone did.
> "AI = low effort" is becoming a heuristic regardless of the assertion's absolute accuracy.
If you can tell that it's AI, that's probably because it is low effort. Higher-effort attempts pass more easily.
(Of course, that also requires an understanding that there are ways to apply effort to making a short request; and believing that it would make a difference; and noticing for yourself that the first output is bad; and trying. Quite a lot of people seem to lack at least one of these.)
If I send a single email "subject: poster" "make me a poster for our event, details below, we need 200 printed" that's also low effort. If I do this on fiverr, it's also "unwillingness or inability to spend resources"
> your product or brand.
I think you are conflating a wide audience with a narrow idea. We aren't talking about just the large coorporations, or the popular rockband. There are local bookclubs, a carbootsale, a group of hobby-foo-bars showing their foo-bars at the local pub next month. A concert by "amateurs". Someone looking for an appartment. A cat that got lost.
Do all of these need to show high-effort and/or willingness to spend resources?
ajjenkins · · focus · HN ↗
That may be true if you’re working with a top of the line artist, but in my experience the average freelance designer online is significantly worse than AI. I’ve worked with dozens of budget friendly designers on Fiverr and consistently get way worse results than I’ve gotten from AI models. Will a great human designer produce better output than an AI? Maybe, but a small local event or business probably won’t have the budget to hire them or know where to find them. It’s cheaper, faster and easier to use AI to generate something that’s good enough for their purposes.
People also point out all the little flaws in the “good” examples and cite them as obvious tells that they were AI generated. I think it would be interesting to see if people could reliably distinguish between AI generated flyers and human made flyers. Sure, sometimes it’s obvious like when the AI adds those weird, cartoony people. But if the model is told not to create designs like that and stick to the styles used in the second half of the article, I expect people would have a much harder time distinguishing the human designs from the AI designs.
berkes · · focus · HN ↗
I think it's actually a feature when people can recognize it as AI.
Why would someone want it to be unrecognizable as AI? What is the reason people want to hide AI usage ? (other than when "cheating" in studies or examns or such, obv)
RiverCrochet · · focus · HN ↗
Both of these communicate that I will probably not get a good value for my money when buying your product or service.
parpfish · · focus · HN ↗
If a business markets itself with these AIgen posters, you get wildly different responses from different groups.
boomers that spend all their time on Facebook will think “this is such a nice pretty poster” and be oblivious to the fact it is even ai. Even if they knew it was ai they don’t care.
Young people will think it is low class/trashy. Some hate it because it’s ai, others hate it because the poster is ugly/busy/confusing.
rpdillon · · focus · HN ↗
This is where I stop following. Businesses should focus on where they differentiate, and I really don't care how they generate signage if I can read it. I don't get anything by them paying Banksy to make their menu instead of having Gemini generate it. And if there is any connection to getting good value, it's the inverse: I'm more likely to get good value when I'm not paying for fancy advertising. See: every drugstore that puts generics alongside brand names for cheaper.
pynappo · · focus · HN ↗
The worst generative AI posters and restaurant menus I'm seeing from newer small businesses do not instill the same feeling that I'm getting generic-like value. To keep with the drug analogy, they feel like the combo pills you find somewhere in the back of a gas station which combine 10+ random supplements to help with 20+ different symptoms. Especially for new restaurants where real reviews are limited, menus with terrible AI generated food drawings really give me the same ick - that they might not be providing any good value at all.
However, i do admit that part of this is also that i live in an area where there is tons of competition for most cuisines I'm interested in, so I can use menu quality as a differientiating factor in the first place. If enough places around me were using sloppy AI menus i would probably ignore it.
RiverCrochet · · focus · HN ↗
rpdillon · · focus · HN ↗
I'm saying I don't particularly value businesses that focus on things that are low impact for me. I'd rather my barista focus on sourcing good beans and making good coffee than paying someone to do a fancy custom menu for them. We see this all the time when we visit new areas. It's considered naive to follow whatever looks most glitzy -- every seasoned traveler will tell stories about all the tourist traps, and how the real quality is the hole-in-the-wall place all the locals gather.
What I'm saying is we shouldn't conflate quality with marketing and advertising, which is what posters are. You seem dead set on doing so anyway, and I'm not sure why.
RiverCrochet · · focus · HN ↗
Correct, I am. I apologize if I gave the impression I was debating. I will absolutely "conflate" quality with marketing and advertising when it's the only signal I have about a company and I don't have the resources to research further. For example, if I'm in a new place, out and about, and looking for somewhere to eat, and only have an hour or so, yes I'm choosing the place without AI slop ads unless I have additional information - especially if the food is generically AI generated. I'd love to have time to deeply research all businesses and companies and ignore ads entirely but that's not always practical.
Me learning of your company on Instagram or similar through an AI slop poster ad that looks exactly like the 10 preceding monster-truck-rally AI slop poster ads is a bad impression to me. From comments I've seen on similar Instagram ads, I'm not alone.
williamcotton · · focus · HN ↗
doug_durham · · focus · HN ↗
RiverCrochet · · focus · HN ↗
AI-generated visuals aren't the first to go through this. I'd say the early-to-mid 90's "desktop publishing" went through this too - as soon as everyone could make ads and flyers cheaply with Word, everyone did.
zahlman · · focus · HN ↗
If you can tell that it's AI, that's probably because it is low effort. Higher-effort attempts pass more easily.
(Of course, that also requires an understanding that there are ways to apply effort to making a short request; and believing that it would make a difference; and noticing for yourself that the first output is bad; and trying. Quite a lot of people seem to lack at least one of these.)
johnnyanmac · · focus · HN ↗
It won't die off until AI stops being used with low effort. Which it is the majority the time used for.
poulpy123 · · focus · HN ↗
berkes · · focus · HN ↗
If I send a single email "subject: poster" "make me a poster for our event, details below, we need 200 printed" that's also low effort. If I do this on fiverr, it's also "unwillingness or inability to spend resources"
> your product or brand.
I think you are conflating a wide audience with a narrow idea. We aren't talking about just the large coorporations, or the popular rockband. There are local bookclubs, a carbootsale, a group of hobby-foo-bars showing their foo-bars at the local pub next month. A concert by "amateurs". Someone looking for an appartment. A cat that got lost.
Do all of these need to show high-effort and/or willingness to spend resources?