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.
There's an amazing viral twitter thread where someone claimed a real Monet painting was an AI generated imitation, and it got an avalanche of comments from people who claimed it was an obvious fake and a poor imitation at that.
It's not tracking a real thing as much as people would like to think.
Factor? That's not what was described: "knowing it was AI irrespective of anything else."
And no - I don't think it's fair to call the art bad when in fact what you mean is you don't like the way it was made. Saying "I don't like AI art" is not the same as "This piece is shit".
Art is not evaluated based solely on the isolated output. Intent, context, and human effort are fundamental parts of why people value a work. People calling an AI piece "bad" by default are responding to that lack of human agency and intent. The process is part of the work, so factoring how it was made into your judgment is entirely fair, even as the primary deciding factor.
A fair retort is that holding every creative output to this standard, like a flyer for a community fair, is needlessly critical. That is not an unreasonable position. Still, I think it is fair for one to believe that using an AI image is a clear low-effort signal that strips away the human element that makes community events appealing in the first place. And for commercial products: if your ad is low effort, why should I believe your product is not?
I don't really feel like you engaged with the point at all. You fixated on the original commenter's exact phrasing to dodge the argument: provenance isn't separate from art.
If someone strongly values human agency and intent, knowing a piece lacks both (in part, or entirely) is a completely rational reason to call it bad. Many would argue (myself included) that the primary difference between "art" and "content" is human agency, effort, and intent. The more the outcome is driven by a black-box algorithm, the more that agency and intention are compromised.
I'm not dodging at all - I'm providing the quote which makes your point fail to land.
What is being described is not "factoring". Factoring implies multiple datapoints were merged together. The quote demonstrates that only one data point was used.
You can see it again with "provenance isn't separate from art". What you are describing is "provenance replaces art".
As GP perhaps implied, "prejudice" is "biased evaluation" with a negative tone — if you are looking to be fully objective, a different term might be better.
Ok... ? It does seem biased (judging the art without even looking at it) and it does seem negative (it's shit) so I don't understand where I'm missing the boat? Can you elaborate?
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.
glenstein · · focus · HN ↗
It's not tracking a real thing as much as people would like to think.
AndrewKemendo · · focus · HN ↗
Every single person I’ve asked, and I’ve asked hundreds, say that knowing it was AI irrespective of anything else was enough to think it was bad.
There’s millions of genai images that people aren’t commenting on because they don’t know it’s AI.
qarl · · focus · HN ↗
That's prejudice.
paulhebert · · focus · HN ↗
Do you think it’s unfair for people to dislike AI generated art based on their principles?
qarl · · focus · HN ↗
paulhebert · · focus · HN ↗
qarl · · focus · HN ↗
And no - I don't think it's fair to call the art bad when in fact what you mean is you don't like the way it was made. Saying "I don't like AI art" is not the same as "This piece is shit".
HelloMcFly · · focus · HN ↗
A fair retort is that holding every creative output to this standard, like a flyer for a community fair, is needlessly critical. That is not an unreasonable position. Still, I think it is fair for one to believe that using an AI image is a clear low-effort signal that strips away the human element that makes community events appealing in the first place. And for commercial products: if your ad is low effort, why should I believe your product is not?
qarl · · focus · HN ↗
Again, that is not what is being described here: "knowing it was AI irrespective of anything else."
HelloMcFly · · focus · HN ↗
If someone strongly values human agency and intent, knowing a piece lacks both (in part, or entirely) is a completely rational reason to call it bad. Many would argue (myself included) that the primary difference between "art" and "content" is human agency, effort, and intent. The more the outcome is driven by a black-box algorithm, the more that agency and intention are compromised.
qarl · · focus · HN ↗
What is being described is not "factoring". Factoring implies multiple datapoints were merged together. The quote demonstrates that only one data point was used.
You can see it again with "provenance isn't separate from art". What you are describing is "provenance replaces art".
AndrewKemendo · · focus · HN ↗
qarl · · focus · HN ↗
AndrewKemendo · · focus · HN ↗
qarl · · focus · HN ↗
necovek · · focus · HN ↗
qarl · · focus · HN ↗