Earlier this year I was visiting friends and one of them was watching some terrible YouTube videos full of ancient alien type nonsense and full of AI stock footage. Half of it didn't make any sense, and it was just a bizarre experience - mixed up nonsense blather illustration with nonsense imagery.
The friend who was watching this stuff is not the brightest, and he's extremely gullible. I'd rather he just watch spiderman or something, he'd probably be better informed about the world.
> Earlier this year I was visiting friends and one of them was watching some terrible YouTube videos full of ancient alien type nonsense
He didn't need to do that - there's some really great videos full of ancient alien nonsense!
[EDIT - I actually like the ancient alien nonsense. It's no less credible than the various spirituality, religious, mystic or occult beliefs held by 90% of the planet. If you're judging someone's intelligence on whether they like to watch ancient alien theories/spiritual/religious/mystical/occult shows, then you're so disconnected from humanity that your opinion probably doesn't matter to anyone, anyway.]
Counterpoint: I think they usually look dumb, but seeing them does not prejudice me for or against the text of your article.
To clarify, I do sometimes get mad at actual photos that are poorly chosen, and the same is true of AI-generated photos demonstrating bad art direction, bad taste, or bad judgment on the part of the author or editor. But them being obviously AI-generated has nothing to do with it.
> I know there’s plenty of things you can roast my blog for but at least you know for a fact you’re getting the thoughts of a real human being and not some LLM.
Why? I'd venture that a plurality, if not a majority, of people who can write well cannot create good digital art, and vice-versa. The use of AI images on a blog post, assuming you're there for the written content, seems at best a very weak signal of any kind.
Fair point. You can't know for sure that I don't use LLMs for my blog. I think it would be obvious it's a real human being if you read a few blog posts.
I stopped using AI-images as social media thumbnails since a) they take a surprising amount of effort in order to make distinct and non-generic with techniques such as ControlNet [e.g. https://minimaxir.com/2023/03/new-chatgpt-overlord/featured....] and b) thumbnails don't matter anymore for personal blogs since social media sharing of links is dead.
I'm not sure if it's the whole social media, but X (formerly Twitter) now discourage you to share links. Yes, apparently attaching a URL will rank you lower in algorithm.
My problem with the AI-generated images that most people use for their blogs isn't that they're AI-generated, it's that they're bad. People use, I think, mostly DALLE-3 to make these super-busy infographic type illustrations that are completely devoid of meaning because they're AI, full of mangled text and nonsense logos. They're incomprehensible, they maybe kind of convey the idea of "business" or "tech" or something like that but they make no real point.
If you're going to use AI to make a blog image, use it to make something identifiable. If your blog post is about tigers, and you use a picture of a tiger, it doesn't make much of a difference if the picture is AI generated or a stock photo. You didn't take it either way. If the blog post is about your prediction on the next year of tech stocks, use the AI to make a picture of something simple like a computer rather than some kind of Bayeux Tapestry of random tech-like things.
It was novel and funny when it first came out. Now it's not novel and just crap. Its fine to have no image on your blog post, its better than a slop generated pic.
Agreed. I still think it's cool from a technology point of view. But it doesn't inspire confidence when I see these generative images in blogs/articles.
I spent weeks playing with Midjourney until 3am. I also can’t stand AI generated pictures anymore.
Something about it being so generic and not making sense really triggers the uncanny valley sense now. If anyone is not sure what I mean, ask an AI to generate a map of your home country (or better - your metropolitan area) and you’ll see exactly why it’s so off putting
Embarrassingly, I spent even longer with Midjourney to come to the same conclusion.
It really isn't an issue with AI art but the limited, uncreative output of AI art models. I suspect many artists have been removed from earlier midjourney models too as well along with human input has softened the edges overall.
Then is just a matter of time that someone will comment on how you have to use stable diffusion and how much better stable diffusion is but that is because they mean "art" in the context of AI hentai.
Photoshop AI fill sounds like the greatest thing ever but the output is the same useless slop, not even as good as Midjourney. Only good for press releases and cherry picked best examples.
I don't like AI art in blogs because to me it is just signalling you haven't spent enough time with AI tools yet to understand these images look like shit. The other blog content then is framed in the same light.
Another thing that makes me close the page as soon as I can press CTRl-W is anime avatars, and if the blog is built like a back and forth discussion between two cartoon characters.
100% with you on the latter point. It's a shame because, so far, where I've seen those, the author does actuallly seem to have some deep knowledge or something insightful to share. But man it's so hard to look past that awful delivery.
I agree - at least I take it as a red flag that the blogs content is probably also low effort slob and that I should assign it a rather low credibility
Readit News
The friend who was watching this stuff is not the brightest, and he's extremely gullible. I'd rather he just watch spiderman or something, he'd probably be better informed about the world.
He didn't need to do that - there's some really great videos full of ancient alien nonsense!
[EDIT - I actually like the ancient alien nonsense. It's no less credible than the various spirituality, religious, mystic or occult beliefs held by 90% of the planet. If you're judging someone's intelligence on whether they like to watch ancient alien theories/spiritual/religious/mystical/occult shows, then you're so disconnected from humanity that your opinion probably doesn't matter to anyone, anyway.]
To clarify, I do sometimes get mad at actual photos that are poorly chosen, and the same is true of AI-generated photos demonstrating bad art direction, bad taste, or bad judgment on the part of the author or editor. But them being obviously AI-generated has nothing to do with it.
> I know there’s plenty of things you can roast my blog for but at least you know for a fact you’re getting the thoughts of a real human being and not some LLM.
In fact, I cannot know that.
If you're going to use AI to make a blog image, use it to make something identifiable. If your blog post is about tigers, and you use a picture of a tiger, it doesn't make much of a difference if the picture is AI generated or a stock photo. You didn't take it either way. If the blog post is about your prediction on the next year of tech stocks, use the AI to make a picture of something simple like a computer rather than some kind of Bayeux Tapestry of random tech-like things.
It really isn't an issue with AI art but the limited, uncreative output of AI art models. I suspect many artists have been removed from earlier midjourney models too as well along with human input has softened the edges overall.
Then is just a matter of time that someone will comment on how you have to use stable diffusion and how much better stable diffusion is but that is because they mean "art" in the context of AI hentai.
Photoshop AI fill sounds like the greatest thing ever but the output is the same useless slop, not even as good as Midjourney. Only good for press releases and cherry picked best examples.
I don't like AI art in blogs because to me it is just signalling you haven't spent enough time with AI tools yet to understand these images look like shit. The other blog content then is framed in the same light.