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AI-generated posters don’t have to be horrible

1902 points · 962 comments · ereiamjh

  1. ajjenkins · · focus · HN ↗
    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.

    1. berkes · · focus · HN ↗
      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)

      1. afavour · · focus · HN ↗
        > Why would someone want it to be unrecognizable as AI? What is the reason people want to hide it

        Because a lot of “everyday” folks really strongly dislike AI. I’ve lost count of the number of AI generated Instagram ads I’ve seen where the comments are filled with “AI slop!”.

        It’s not a positive signal for anyone who wants to persuade someone of the value of whatever they’re advertising because it’s associated with being cheap and lazy.

        1. jryle70 · · focus · HN ↗
          I think "a lot" is very subjective. I can also say "a lot of people really like AI-generated arts" and that would be true as well. HN is a place where a lot of normally objective, informed, and probably very nice folks in the real life come to engage in endless of debates that go nowhere.
          1. afavour · · focus · HN ↗
            > Half of U.S. adults say the increased use of AI in daily life makes them feel more concerned than excited, according to a June 2025 survey. Just 10% say they are more excited than concerned. Another 38% say they are equally concerned and excited.

            > About half of Americans said in the June survey that AI will worsen people’s ability to think creatively and form meaningful relationships with others. Far fewer said AI will make these things better.

            <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pewresearch.org&#x2F;short-reads&#x2F;2026&#x2F;03&#x2F;12&#x2F;key-findings-about-how-americans-view-artificial-intelligence&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pewresearch.org&#x2F;short-reads&#x2F;2026&#x2F;03&#x2F;12&#x2F;key-findi...

            “about half” surely objectively qualifies as “a lot”.

            &gt; I can also say &quot;a lot of people really like AI-generated arts&quot; and that would be true as well.

            Yes but without the corresponding negative. If someone who likes AI generated art sees some human created art they don’t think “gross, why didn’t they use AI to do that?”. So for something like advertising using AI will alienate some potential customers. Not using AI will alienate no one.

            1. Chance-Device · · focus · HN ↗
              People aren’t feeling the benefits of AI. Where there are any benefits, they aren’t causing prices to decrease or supply to go up, instead the excess value is being absorbed by profit taking.

              If most people aren’t shareholders but instead workers whose jobs are threatened by AI, we should expect this response.

              It has nothing to do with artists, it has everything to do with trying to mount a collective response to the apparent threat, poorly expressed as crowds tend to do.

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