ES version is available. Content is displayed in original English for accuracy.
Advertisement
Advertisement
⚡ Community Insights
Discussion Sentiment
54% Positive
Analyzed from 10504 words in the discussion.
Trending Topics
#images#generated#blog#image#don#more#content#human#slop#something
Discussion (338 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
The problem comes when the imagery is placed as a false value signal. If it is designed to send a signal of "this content took a lot of effort to produce because an image that would be hard for a human to make is attached to it" - but the image was generated without that effort, then it's basically a lie and insult to the reader.
Decoration and ornament have served always to signal extra effort that went into something, signaling that it is considered important and valued by the maker/owner. But people also have incentive to do cheaper mimicry. And then the viewers have incentive to distinguish real from fake to see where true, scarce effort went. These dynamics are crucial for understanding the feelings and emotions around AI. Value is almost never in the thing itself or some inherent quality but in the social signals and relationships. (somewhat less true in very utilitarian engineering machinery or for sustenance level basic necessities).
While AI images in a blog signify low effort high volume posting where the text likely was just copied from AI without any care.
This stuff you say it signifies, it says more about you than them.
In cheap housing constructing, every step hides the previous steps mistakes. Framing - drywall - trim - texturing - painting - decorating.
Images (incl. icons) can also be there to structure text and provide visual clues on what is where.
Take a look at the Google Image Search results for 'Engine Diagram' https://www.google.com/search?q=Engine+Diagram&tbm=isch
In the first row I get two correct-looking diagrams, then a load of AI-generated ones. Three cylinder heads for four cylinders? Two crankshafts? Oil pan labelled Crankshaft? Oil pan labelled Connect in rod? A four-cylinder engine with seven valve springs? Parts labelled up to 39 but a 9-item key? Spark plug wires that loop back on themselves? A crank shaft where the pistons aren't offset in phase? Four-cylinder engines whose exhaust manifolds have three or five openings? Then in the second row, I get "Parts of a V6 engine" showing a four-cylinder engine - with an 'Exhaust malvol', an 'extaust manivol', an 'exsoust manivol' an 'oilolaivt manivol'
Savvy technical audiences have noticed this - and so when a diagram has a whiff of AI about it, they become extremely skeptical and distracted.
Personally I only use AI-generated diagrams very sparingly, and very carefully.
What baffles me is why anyone would think it a good idea to post and host these images? What’s that upside?
To an extent, I guess?
But in the past if one wanted a diagram and didn't care about copyright they'd grab an image like https://i0.wp.com/www.engineeringchoice.org/wp-content/uploa... and reuse it unmodified.
In the age of AI, one can hand it to an LLM and get https://mechaniclove.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/engine-p... in a different style. And with messed up labels and the wrong number of holes in the gaskets.
No, the problem of mass-produced, outright wrong, educational graphics flooding image-search results did not exist before 2023.
As a bonus you can then prompt AI to validate whether the diagram matches article and vice versa, I've caught some small bugs like that when we migrated our docs
No repro with Nano Banana with an infographic prompt.
Communicating low effort used to be insulting to the consumer, yet now I'm expected to praise it? I understand that we're not talking about monetary exchange, but we're still talking about my finite time in this world, time that I could've been invest reading or looking at something else.
So we're going back to my favorite adage these days: If you cannot spend time writing it, I refuse to spend time reading it.
In fact, the moment I realize someone's content is AI generated, I just feed the links (youtube -> transcript, blog posts -> link) to chatGPT and have it generate a summary. That's because if you're in favor of using your time efficiently then so am I.
I try to find something better when I can, but the need to put something on every post is exhausting.
But, for abstract posts, random bits of code, notes, etc - it looks bad to have them be all the same generic icon or my headshot for them it seems off-putting. I'm not a graphic artist, so I instead use MidJourney generated icons for social / post icons that match the topic of the post.
If it's only decoration, leave it out. No matter whether AI, stock or custom made.
So do with it as you wish, if you enjoy playing with AI and having it assist you with any part of it it's your corner of the net do with it as you absolutely wish and everyone else can kick rocks.
Well, the issue is the majority of AI images seems to fall into this category, which then trains my brain to treat all AI images in this way, rather than sifting for the few golden use cases where it's legitimately adding value.
At work, for example, I'm more likely to go brains off if someone presenting content shows an AI generated image in their slides.
I’m quite happy without all the slop.
I believe they used to call that "art."
The belief that we were living in a golden age of hand-made visual beauty before AI arrived is obvious nonsense.
The golden age of illustration ended when Illustrator arrived. After that, everything became a mess of cliches and clip art, culminating with Google's Material Design, where everything looks simultaneously soulless, heartless, and bland.
AI brought some colour back. A lot of the imagery is kitsch, but illustration has always tended to kitsch, so nothing really changed there.
This is the irony of the anti-AI purity hunt. Most human-made work is crap. It always has been.
AI hasn't suddenly sent the quality of creativity off a cliff. It's commoditised the low standard of most previous hand-made work and made it easier to access.
The high end - the real talent - still stands out. But most people can't afford it, and even fewer people appreciate it.
Yes. That's why it's called slop. And now we're absolutely swimming in it. I guess a small number of people like it, but then there's no accounting for (bad) taste.
A superintelligent LLM/agent that wants its content to be read by humans (…which itself is suspicious - if not ominous) is not going to dress itself up as a slop-farm.
Also I’d like to remind all the AI boosters and LLM glazers in the audience here that if something is interesting enough to read, it will be interesting enough to write; if you outsource production to an agent then it tells me you don’t actually care about the output, and I won’t care to read it.
That said, do you care in a similar way about important or interesting calculations being done by humans instead of machines? What is the cut-off function machine vs human?
This is how I'd like for human-on-behalf-of-human outreach to work too, i.e. if my human secretary sends a message under my identity and via my email client, I'd expect it to be under their name not mine.
This points out some long standing issues with lack of accountability and deception by humans through our time. Think: humans have been doing these things:
- human have other humans impersonate them and send messages on their behalf (i.e. via secretary, receptionist, email, a VA, via social media via a social media manager)
- friends or family answering your letters if your a celebrity
Those behaviors, deceptive and lies, are insults to you at the expense of the gain of the liar. We haven't held them to accountability or a standard of respect before AI, and so we are facing the same challenges we did before AI - we just have more humans doing the same thing with AI as the <insert old human role here>. Why have we been unable to hold them accountable to the deception before - lack if transparency, lack of power to hold accountability to the behavior?
If you're creating complete slop, no one is reading your article in the first place. Full stop. The image doesn't matter.
As with anything, it's about what you created, and creating at all - not the tool you used to create.
The snobs and haters will continue to b!tch and moan. They always have. Always will. Your two cent elitist opinions are still only worth two cents.
But you didn't create anything in this case. Not the images at least. Which then casts doubt on the rest of the writing in said blog post.
I've heard it all before.
Gate keepers wanna keep the gate as long as they can.
It will be wrong sometimes, but mostly it's not. OP has a point.
It's a start of a barber's pole of fashion. Like when it became desirable to wear torn jeans even if you can afford proper ones. But you can only safely do it if you won't be confused with an actual hobo. It signals not playing by midwit pearl clutcher rules. So same with AI use. Don't play to the pearl clutchers, but don't be a hobo either. Shower but have somewhat torn jeans.
Pre-torn jeans signal being a poser, wanting the torn jeans look without having the lifestyle that results in torn jeans, or even having the agency to tear your own jeans
So it's an apt analogy for AI users I guess. People who want to build creative works without ever putting in any effort to learn how
Modern society rewards taking shortcuts way too much
Also, that's just misleading. When I see pictures of food on a menu, I expect them to be real pictures of an example of the actual dish I'd get (perhaps made a little more carefully with more of an eye towards presentation, but the actual, real item).
AI-generated food photos on a menu are dirty lies.
I don't get who would think that's a good idea. Like if I order something because the picture shows that the dish has carrots or something and the dish you bring doesn't I'm going to complain.
But then again I can't tell you the number of restaurants that have a photograph of a menu on a website where the original was clearly digital already.
https://youtu.be/pSYw8LTXXJM?is=FsJwTFKUkeDt1Z2Y
Tangentially, I kinda like the idea of Doordashs crowd sourced food images. Take a Pic of your food before you eat and get like a $5 discount if it is chosen. Customers are not likely to manipulate the product (they may stage it nicely like you mentioned but won't put browning agent or other additives to make it shinier).
approximately infinitely more hard, considering using AI is 0 hard.
I think it is like CGI in movies, in the beginning it was often obvious and jarring. Over time as it gets better the obviousness of AI images will be much harder to spot and they will be common without being noteworthy.
What a ridiculous conclusion jump.
It's the complete opposite of that. I prefer human things, human interaction, with human beings involved, which in some way reflect the human experience.
Maybe they are hoping robots will replace human interaction, connection and intimacy like in some of those future distopian movies
I want to say /s but I'm sure lots of people are looking forward to this because they are already lonely
hm, ok
It’s a turnoff immediately if someone shares what their agent wrote.
It also has happened a few times they contain a fair number of misrepresentations and mistakes.
You can put it inline or at the end of the article: references, citations, further reading, "AI".
(It might also be the only way to stop training models on their own output)
Speaking for myself, I have absolutely no interest in reading anything written by an LLM that I didn't prompt myself, under really any circumstances I can think of.
It's better than the current status quo, where people post LLM writing without attributing it to the LLM, hoping you'll get tricked into reading.
At least if it's labeled like the GP describes, you know what you're getting and can make your own decision.
On the other hand:
> (It might also be the only way to stop training models on their own output)
On the other hand, I think it's a moral imperative to make it so the models train on their own output. I have absolutely no interest in giving them clean input data. After reading about how ISBNdb is helping them destroy old pre-LLM books for input, I totally think someone who does not have small children should start creating print-on-demand forgeries of such books (with the same ISBN numbers) filled with the most garbage-quality LLM text possible.
Usually there are many buttons and links one wouldn't click on.
If authors can't resist having chunks of copy paste slop in the middle of their article they can do it in a way I don't have to see it.
They also get a fair opportunity to impress me with a prompt that looks interesting enough.
And they get to distance themselves from the idea that copying [say] a Wikipedia article into a blog posting is the same as writing something.
Their first reaction was to say they didn't see any problem with the image, then they changed it for an abstract image that I couldn't tell if it was AI or not, which is a huge improvement.
I thought I was alone in feeling this way, but turns out people from the sales team told me privately that they were happy I had spoken up.
The whole thing was packed with information and completely worthless. I’m 100% convinced that before too long we’re all going to be allergic to this low effort crap, and craving actual people with an actual point of view.
it's fatiguing to read that stuff as well
I guess if you’re in an environment where the emphasis is put on busy-work and formalities, then you’re going to get this sort of shit. Deeper organizational problem at that point, though…
Selecting a stock image doesn’t have this effect, even if it’s not related to the post. Even the most unremarkable stock image has the fingerprints of its artist, and the choice itself can reveal things about the author. They don’t have that hyper-polished unintentioniality and subtle uncanny hollow “wrongness” that generated images do.
She’s had to figure out where the line is though. She tried using ElevenLabs to dictate her scripts, thinking it’d make things more convenient for her fans, and that lost her subscribers because they seemingly disliked the more obvious use of AI.
Yes, this is what's insulting about it, the assumption that it won't be noticed.
People noticed, they just didn’t want cause a conflict over it.
The teaser image isn’t the content. Most people consider it part of the web design or setting the tone for the article.
There’s a very vocal minority who will get turned off by AI anything right now, even when it’s not part of the main content. Some times a good blog post will land on the HN front page and it will collect complaints that the layout or web design looked too AI generated so those people didn’t read it. I don’t think it’s a big loss. Blogs have attracted a peanut gallery of picky critics forever.
> She’s had to figure out where the line is though. She tried using ElevenLabs to dictate her scripts, thinking it’d make things more convenient for her fans, and that lost her subscribers because they seemingly disliked the more obvious use of AI.
Using AI for the main content is a no-no. The actual content that they came for has to show signs of authenticity.
Actually using AI to make a shitpost image relevant to the text? Amusing, fun, worthwhile.
https://www.wired.com/story/corporate-memphis-design-tech/
Public shaming is disrespectful. As is the self-righteous "teaching" of something that is ultimately a personal preference. You aren't being forced to read someone's personal blog.
For me it's a reverse filter, the people I see doing the shaming, those the loudest most seemingly unhinged anti-AI folks - they get blocked / ignored and looked at as if they were the equiv of PETA activists.
That's a wild stance. If you don't like what someone else made - AI assisted or not - you can just move on and not purposefully set out to publicly ruin them...
People already tried to cancel others because they didn't agree with them. Eventually the most of people came to a conclusion that it is no good. I think at least that the most did just that. So I'm proposing another solution, just ignore what you don't like. No one is forcing you to read a blog that uses AI generated images or uses a wrong color for its background.
It surprises me, that you don't know. But if you wanted to know you'd ask LLM, not me, right? So I'd rather spare myself from explaining it.
> I think it's totally fine (and even good) to talk about the flaws in stuff.
To talk about the flaws and public shame are different thing, don't you think?
I mean personal blogs I agree the writing portion should be personal but does that go for everything? Maybe the author should take the emoji off his page(??!!)
Sigh
This is "Bicycle face" level of hatred (or fear) against new technology.
But please keep it coming. I need to spend less time idly browsing and the growing preponderance of AI is helping push me in the direction I want to go. My time spent on “social media” has dropped significantly over recent months.
Here are two examples with AI images from Nano Banana:
https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Blog/2026-04-20/Drops_of_Wat...
https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Blog/2026-07-23/Sixtless_in_...
I think I'll probably keep doing what I'm doing there.
Although if it's for a mental diary maybe you could get a nice camera for it?
The point of repetition is to reinforce understanding by approaching the same place from different directions, so the reader can pin down your idea at the intersection of these various thrusts. Multiple arrows from roughly the same place going in roughly the same direction don’t constrain the expressed idea, instead they just make it fuzzier.
A chess game between to bots is boring, no matter how strong the bots are. Humans generally compare themselves to other humans and that's part of how they value.
I'm thinking quite a few chess nerds could be interested - depending on how the game develops.
The latter, of course, which is why that's what I own. Aside from that, this is an absurd and grossly dishonest analogy -- that's not at all the choice here.
Some of the most fascinating games are between Stockfish and Leela. (e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_84B_VwayU -- this is narrated by National Master "Jerry", one of the most respected chess narrators on YouTube.) People who don't know this know nothing about chess. (And only immature clueless fish respond by challenging someone to a game. Lack of knowledge of chess was already established by their ridiculous claim. BTW, he has radically changed his response , which is now very different from his original claim. It's not my misunderstanding, it's his bad faith.)
Some of the most stupid things I have ever read are from those suffering from radical anti-AI hysteria, and it is becoming a primary means by which I judge people's intelligence. ("radical" is a key word here -- there are numerous legitimate reasons to be critical of numerous aspects of the AI boom.)
I won't respond further.
Would you rather watch a chess tournament between two of the best human players in world, or between two of the best bots in the world?
I know that chess is deeper than this, its about the positions that are reached and what each game adds to the existing knowledge and in that case it doesn't matter if its a human or bot. I understand very well that there is allot a Grandmaster can learn from games between two strong bots.
But here I am talking about human nature on how we value things, if a human can do something that I can't do than I value that more, I know Usain Bolt is faster than me, I know he is extremly fast compared to myself and other humans.
I challenge you to a game of chess. Lets Go!
The "featured image" in Wordpress is what gets shown on the index page, in shared social posts, and other contexts. And certainly, the algorithms favor such posts over pure text posts, even if the text content in the spartan post is far better.
There are other factors at play, too. Many bloggers are lazy, some are severely time constrained, a few are fearful of legal repercussions associated with copying images off the Internet, and a majority are creatively or technically incapable of making their own images to include on a personal blog post.
Interesting because I'm seeing tons of YouTube channels using AI generated stick figure animations with AI voice overlays to trick people into thinking it's not AI generated.
And if you generated a pic I suppose you also generated your post, so I'm way less likely to pay attention to it.
There was zero depth to it.
that seems lazier than whatever they're gatekeeping about
they even tried to get in front of that criticism
Pen-type input systems are pretty cheap these days (no need to go reMarkable, I just use it because I have one.) It's not a super frequent need but having something of that type in general I'd consider valuable enough to spend the money.
It's a lie. It tricks the reader looking for deeper meaning.
Though hastily chosen non-AI images may do this too.
The actual content is written by me. If there are any code samples that were AI-generated, I'll call them out as such.
Yes, this is the exact kind of AI image usage that discourages me (and presumably this post's author) from reading the rest of it.
A. If it's unrelated, it doesn't add anything to the post except aesthetics. B. On the aesthetics dimension: I don't think people are very impressed by the AI aesthetic, and tend to be annoyed by it. C. It seems that most people now assume that AI-generated image == AI-generated text.
I personally do not care about AI images or not, but it seems that a portion of people do.
like why?
to me it just means "I'm an author that likes/makes AI slop and this article is probably half if not complete AI slop or not worth reading"
I don't see how that would add any value or boost page visits
https://disclosure.launchbowl.com/ https://launchbowl.com/ai_nutriscore
I think AI images can enhance a blog article as long as the reader is fully aware and trusting that it's just the auxiliary material to the blog has been generated, not the main body of value.
Before, the simple existence of the content of some basic level of quality was a strong signal of effort, which corresponds strongly to value. If it's there, it's worth reading.
Now, the existence of content of a basic level of quality signals nothing. It might have some value, but it's much more likely it's useless AI slop.
This principle -- if it's there it's probably worth taking a look at -- undergirded so much of system of creation, discovery, and sharing that made the internet special -- blogs, open-source, posts, comments.
It allowed the gatekeepers, middlemen, guided channels, and tolls to be removed from the creation, enjoyment, sharing, and consumption of content.
I'm worried we're going to have to go back, just to get away from the avalanche of crap people are using AI to produce at crazy rate.
Eventually it'll be perfectly normal to use AI-generated content (and use AI to summarize it), and nobody will bat an eye.
Then we just googled for a link to Stack Overflow. And the oldtimers waxed lyrical on Slashdot, bemoaning the loss of craftsmanship, and how it was too easy nowadays - no effort.
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
The likely next normal will be agent-scraped content that it summarizes and tailors to its human. Slop, lacking real content, will be dutifully skipped by the agent, and the human won't care.
Meanwhile, armies of advertisers will cry foul, and scramble for a new way to get in front of human eyeballs.
And for those who want to continue reading blogs for pleasure, it's one agent pre-screen away.
Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis.
There is negative value in wasting vertical space to put an irrelevant prompt output in an article. It makes me question the sanity of whoever is doing this stuff. Doubly so if they actually think they dumped a bunch of AI-generated text on the internet just for people to AI-summarize it. Like... what are they DOING?
I'd think in the former case it doesn't matter and it's mostly the text I care about to be interesting and personal. I don't read non technical blogs so I don't know what if ai images are a turnoff.
I don't see what the problem is with AI images, if some thought has been put into the image itself and if it's relevant in some way. I'd far rather see something playful and on-topic than the generic stock images littering blogs previously or some random example of the writer's photography with little connection to the article.
But really, whatever I like or don't like is besides the point. The blog using AI images isn't my blog. And if I was one of the blog authors who've sent this author into full prig-mode, I'd say to him, "No worries, Nelson. Have a happy life." I'd wager the blog author's own life wouldn't be any happier for bowing to the sensibilities of the Nelsons of this world.
The original prompts might have had something interesting to say, but it is so layered with filler and platitudes that it is just a waste.
After being burned enough times, we hunt around for signals that an article is about to waste our time.
Not all articles with AI images are LLM written, but almost all LLM written articles have AI images.
The author is telling you a hueristic is that people are using, and for this person here, I am totally doing it.
A picture of a napkin doodle at this point is superior.
That will help me easily distinguish and avoid bad bloggers (or any kind of merchants).
Spend some time on it. Find your own style.
In many contexts, images are meant to illustrate a point. The human becomes the gatekeeper of generated content. The question becomes: does this picture illustrate the point I want to make. If so, you are adding your human approved stamp to the genrated output.
I'm not gonna spend my mental bandwidth on figuring out if the thing is worth reading/whatever and that somehow the author just didn't realize that it's a net negative
Pretty soon, you will not be able to tell.
What you really mean is "obvious AI-generated images".
The biggest thing, for me, is provenance. I sometimes get amazed at how people just grab any image they want, and slap it into their blog. There's a whole class of scammer, that goes around spamming fake "we're gonna sue you" letters to sites (I have gotten them, for images that I know are completely clear of obligation). If the image really was ripped off, then they won't be scammers, sending the emails.
I'd rather someone use an AI-generated image; especially if it's just "window dressing," than they put themselves into legal jeopardy, by pirating images.
As much as I like to be on the anti AI bandwagon, for which there are plenty of good reasons. Some people use the tool (like any tool) well, to compliment their work.
Eg. this author uses great images to accompany their articles (except for one which is obviously AI), its hard to know if they are real or not but they support the text. https://tuhat.net/@jesusrrodriguez/
Regarding businesses, I think the use of bland stock images made most corporate sites awful years ago. AI is just accelerating and making it easier for the rest of us to create the lazy heartless "content" that has been so common from the corporate world.
As time goes on they'll be harder to spot. We're going to need a new way of determining quality as such obvious signals have a limited shelf-life.
Not that AI generated images are always bad. They are perfectly acceptable if used for (not an exclusive list): small separators between sections in large blog posts, or other decorative features; used to illustrate things for which no real image exists (as long as it's labelled as an impression/reconstruction/etc.). They're only really a negative signal if they're used dishonestly, to claim something existed when it didn't, etc.
The goal of someone putting actual ideas out into the world should be to establish trust, not create questions about whether the ideas are theirs or plagiarized from ChatGPT.
Personally, I'm okay with AI generated images as long as it's not obvious or slop: For me, a carefully-prompted image is on par with a carefully chosen photo, carefully chosen diagram, ect.
I also hold blog entries to a lower standard than professional content: I'm much more likely (after skimming) to read an imperfect non-professional blog entry than (after skimming) imperfect professional content. (And professional content is where I expect images that are higher quality than AI prompting.)
Not everything made with some kind of AI assistance is slop, but all slop is made by AI.
We're drowning in this stuff, and no one has enough hours in their day to find out if obviously AI-generated slop can make a positive impact on their life. Why don't you read it and let us know? We'll continue to not engage with it.
And if he's to be believed in 1859, photography isn't art.
But today, it's widely accepted that it is. And in all likelihood, you think it is too.
Why is that? And if you have an answer, you'd have to argue why AI generated images wouldn't follow the same trajectory.
"the kids" are the ones who can spot AI slop pretty easily from what I know
What about stock photography, IMO as much as I personally hate "overcooked" AI-generated imagery, it doesn't annoy me that much more than stock photography does on blogs.
I do however use it as a gauge of "if the images are generated by AI, how much of the text content is?" though, so...
If you push AI-generated content to make stuff look fancy, it's a bad idea. If you generate stuff to communicate more clearly, I don't see a problem.
> As the photographic industry was the refuge of every would-be painter, every painter too ill-endowed or too lazy to complete his studies, this universal infatuation bore not only the mark of a blindness, an imbecility, but had also the air of a vengeance. I do not believe, or at least I do not wish to believe, in the absolute success of such a brutish conspiracy, in which, as in all others, one finds both fools and knaves; but I am convinced that the ill-applied developments of photography, like all other purely material developments of progress, have contributed much to the impoverishment of the French artistic genius, which is already so scarce.
Harsh. It wasn't a fringe view either. I encourage you to read how much creatives despised photography.
This argument was transferred to film when it first came out as well. It took a long while and a couple court cases before it was accepted that it took editorial choice for a photograph and film to be good. When it was accepted that to be the case, despite the aspects of mechanical reproduction, it was also accepted into the pantheon of fine art.
So it will be for AI generated images and video. So far, I've seen nothing inherent in the properties of AI generated media as a medium that obviates a human editorial eye. Even if AI could exercise comparable judgement, we will like an image because we want the curation of a specific person.
In Grant Sanderson's interview with Dwarkesh Patel about the future role of mathematicians (36:25), he says:
> One interesting take that I've heard about what mathematicians will end up being is that it's actually more analogous to art museum curators than anything else. The AI solved the thing, so the art exists. They even know how to explain it really well. But you still want someone to help you navigate this nearly infinite space of what ideas are worth engaging with. Even if AIs were in some sense better at that, I think we would always still prefer a human that we had a relationship with, because the way we get motivated to be interested in things is a social phenomenon. If you have some specific technology you're trying to build, that might be different. But the people listening to this podcast trust your curation on what's an interesting topic in the first place. It's not that they're landing here because whatever your next topic is, that's what they wanted to understand in a prior sense. They're trusting you as a curator. So my role, and arguably that of other mathematicians, might actually just shift subtly into that curation direction of what ideas are worth pursuing. That's a lot of my job right now.
Hence, I think there will be a role for AI generated images and video to be elevated into the fine art in the next couple of decades, and we'll see them in museums and exhibitions--as well more mundane uses like what's sitting on your phone right now--just like how photographs are used today.
Show me one example of AI "art"
I don’t see how blanket labeling all images made with AI as slop is any different from people rejecting photographs because they were made with chemicals and lenses.
In 100 years the same article will be written about AI art, and will probably feature the phrase “clanker slop”.
And somehow, it's a leap of logic that just because the AI image is generated that the text is also. It's as silly as asserting because someone used a camera, they hired a ghostwriter.
Never do it because you can - that is a no-effort thing.
At least with AI there might be some thought or idea behind it. Even it is lazy slop.
Stock photos or AI generated images are always wrong. Real photos, no matter how bland, convey information from reality and are always right.
Before that, when there was a photo in the article it was a frame from a footage from the event or the photo, or the schematic of the device the article was about or something. Something relevant to that particular piece of information.
But then everything became click-bait factory illustrated by images that fit the mood.
AI images don't make it worse. Don't make it better. But they might if they get better at relevant infographics. For now they aren't good enough because they rely on a human for understanding of what are they to depic and humans often don't care enough.
Lazy use of stock imagery is a problem.
Cheap AI image generation is a miracle and this article is dumb af
Rather than wasting time sorting all these out when the images are there mostly to break up a wall of text, some blogs simply use a few AI images. This way if those letters come, they can simply put them in the bin.
I don't object to this use of AI images at all.
As someone who adds AI generated images on blog entries (a single context-appropriate genAI image that is used for OpenGraph sharing), I just do not give a shit if some people have opinions like this. Jog on?
The vast majority of bloggers in 2026 do so for their own edification, to their own preferences and choices. Whining about what they do is decided a beggars being choosers thing.
I record 20-40 minutes of "uneditied, one take no fake" Podcast/Vlog per day and have been using AI to generate the cover image + video description and sometimes title for YouTube lately. Also somewhat low effort, I admit. I have project ideas to upcycle the raw takes. (iSpooge Daily on YouTube, support links on channel page).
My likes and views are consistently up since using Gen AI for said tasks. It's extremely niche, just yapping about existence and ideas as a homeless unemployed software engineer in Christ on daily walks. Some of the most authentic stuff online, in my opinion, criminally underrated. The AI art covers and generated metadata are better than I could do even given unlimited time + resources.
> Other: Claude Code
Then the author said:
> I know there are 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.
So it is OK for you to use AI generation tools like Claude Code and likely using it in your blog or using it to generate code, but it isn't OK for you to see someone else using AI to generate images?
With the above already stated, that means the author cannot guarantee that not a single use of AI was used in their blog at all given that we know they use Claude.
Why preach fake principles with virtue signalling and then break your own standards in your own blog post?
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
If pictures are so important, why would "nobody... take the time to hand draw a piece of art" or find a one of the many free stock photos? When I was actively blogging, I would doodle quick images to include all the time for this precise reason.
The problem is, there are also AI generated MS Paint drawings that you can't tell is AI. We are only noticing the AI images that are in an 'AI' style. The AI tools allow you to make images you can't tell is AI.
The author say they’d prefer Microsoft paint images but actually I don’t think this is true of most audiences. People have the ability to make terrible paint images for decades and they’ve never caught anyone’s attention in a positive way, it’s not going to start now.
OP’s blog of white text on black background will be forgotten quickly. If I visit it again, I will have no recollection of ever having visited. I’m not saying they need to use AI, but to oppose AI with the opposite —- minimal design or even intentionally crappy design — will not have the intended effect of communicating “this is quality human-authored content”, it will just be forgettable.
Often, you find ugliness and rule breaking as a backlash to an overly polished status quo. AM radio rock gave way to punk, hair metal gave way to grunge, and EDM gave way to hyperpop. The most iconic album cover of 2024 was the word "brat" badly rendered on a plain, garish background.[2]
[1] https://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/05/sneaky-hate-s...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brat_(album)
http://www.mspaintadventures.com/sweetbroandhellajeff/?cid=0...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kCpjgl2baLs
If the blog is otherwise not about being amusing or edgy, then the MS Paint is going to send a different vibe. In your examples the paint sets the vibe, which I think is what they were going for.
Citation needed for this one. It could be because people don't do it very much? I think a very good piece of writing coupled with a crappy but intentional MS Paint piece could be very attention catching and memorable.
> OP’s blog of white text on black background will be forgotten quickly.
I actually get annoyed with the tech crowd always complaining at seemingly the slightest bit of flair or fun added to any blog. To each their own, of course. I've seen some really slick minimal blogs but I do like it when layouts gets creative--gawdy, even!--, so long as I can read the text. And you can always use reader mode.
So spot on!
And, with that Paint drawing, it'll probably illustrate what you mean and at the same time we establish some kind of trust; I'll know this is not just mere AI slop.
young people will get used to GenAI as a style and it'll become the new normal.
you can see it in the flowery AI writing that's proliferating into email and docs.
https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/920401/g...
Image is content , ai can generate art level images and an obvious slop . To read or or not is absolutely up to reader , not someone’s entitled opinion .
But I have another hatred:
Monospace makes text harder to read and ugly. It was a necessity. It no longer is. Get over it.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_art