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#don#food#coffee#business#threat#art#sign#owner#someone#bad
Discussion (170 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
That said, my own aesthetic sense is very much turned off by them. It is hard for me to articulate why, but I can name four reasons:
- The food never actually looks good, real, or delicious;
- The information is presented in a haphazard way, with text randomly thrown all over the place;
- There is really only one kind of "style" of these signs that I've seen, and it's sad to think that this style (or lack thereof) may become ubiquitous;
- In a world where AI feels increasingly shoved down our throats, it is unnerving to so suddenly see its rise manifested in the physical world.
We've got millions of years of evolutionary wiring in our heads to try and figure out if something can be eaten - take that out of the process and you can screw up in a bunch of ways which raise alarm bells.
• The pictures on cereal boxes aren't entirely real, either. They use school glue, not milk.
• Your burger has never looked like the one on the menu (see Falling Down)
• I've never eaten at a Chinese takeaway where the food looked like the light-up menu board, either.
How has AI art made your food meaningfully less delicious?
If a menu has pictures, I expect the food to look like the picture. That said, this is really only a problem for the store in respect of returns. If nobody is returning the product because it didn't look as advertised, there probably isn't any harm being done.
Has food ever looked like the picture, though? I find this position unrealistic outside of an Amazon return excuse.
Neither the images created by ChatGPT nor an artists rendition of a latte exist, but based on this logic you’d have a problem with both?
I think most people are just reacting to the careless default style of ChatGPT, or the fact that a human didn’t draw it, not the fact that it’s not “real”.
Wow, you really got him with this completely relevant fact that did not at all miss the point.
I once thought that AI image/video would quickly become unidentifiable, but the surprising thing (so far) is that every new model release is followed by two reactions: "This is incredible" to "I recognize this style. It's AI. They're all the same."
It takes only a few weeks. I've been amazed with our mind's ability to move the goalpost.
AI obviously has 0 realness to it. So it’s worse in every way.
I also prefer the side case of actual photos of the food, which is common at delis and some more authentic Chinese restaurants; these are also being replaced quickly by AI.
Has AI art made my food less delicious - I don't think I've ever purchased food I've seen first represented by AI, but certainly the expectation of taste affects your perception of it...
You are correct though, especially fast food places using air brushed and photoshopped food photos are the inedible food object has been carefully set up.
And no amount of petty votes will change the above.
At the same time though, even if time or budget is tight enough that you’d want to use AI, I’m not sure why you wouldn’t still use real photos for the menu items. This style that the AI apparently defaults to is kinda somewhat passable-ish, until you get to the food items which often look like they would inflict you with several status effects.
> They gave her a day to "think about it."
When this is sort of behavior that the "good guys" advance then it's hard not to expect a "bad guy" with money to show up on the scene and thwart it.
(If I were the coffee shop, I'd seriously weigh how much business versus hassle they're getting from being on Instagram.)
The message’s author is trying to present themselves as someone helpful and compassionate (‘I understand’, ‘I’m trying to help’), but at the same time, they’re one-sidedly setting a firm and short deadline (‘I’ll give you a day’) unprompted and suggesting the café owner strike a deal with one of the people they’re going to recommend. They might have written this with good intentions at heart, but it also wouldn’t feel out of place in a mafia setting (as in ‘do business with us, or else’), so it’s a hard sell.
If they really were compassionate and wanted to help, they easily could have suggested to get the owner in touch with some affordable artists and left her with time to mentally deal with the backlash and all. They didn’t need to emphasise how they were going to tell on her like they were about to launch a vendetta smear campaign or something.
You really should listen to me. If you need some time to think it over, I understand. It's a lot to consider and you've got a lot in your plate. I'll check in soon - would tomorrow be okay? If you need more time, just tell me when.
vs
You really should listen to me. I'll give you a day to think it over before I take further action.
Same information, but the latter assumes a position of authority (I, the person in charge, will be the provider of the time you will receive), and then uses that position to provide an ostensible benevolence as a way to mitigate the implied follow up of non-benevolence. The threat is introduced as the power disparity. The person in power has leverage over the less powerful and the threat is that they will use it. Remove the power disparity, and the implication of threat is also removed.
You can threaten someone with ceasing to be a customer if they don’t change their business practices, and that’s perfectly fine. Sharing publicly available information is generally not a problem, either. But in this case, the author of the message is coming off as very insincere, setting deadlines, and trying to strike up deals, which comes off as unreasonable and makes one wonder if they really are simply going to share publicly available information, or if they’re going to give undue focus over them being ‘uncooperative’. If they did not want their message to come off as a threat, this was very far from an ideal way to write it.
Never let the mob win. They don't deserve her coffee, good riddance.
If you are sending threats to strangers on social media you are at minimum mentally ill, she has something to gain by losing them as customers.
Small businesses barely get by. Someone with work as transient as "artist" should know better.
If somebody threatens them with violence (which is what "threat" is usually implying) then that's a different thing entirely.
ive been called enough mean names by friends and strangers id much rather be called some more mean names in order to become aware of what i could do to win back some customers
It's bullying.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws
I consider a boycott threat a non-violent threat; legal but an exercise of power that has moral dimensions.
The way to make these transitions less aggressive on everyone is to not have it tied directly to whether or not someone can afford to eat.
People take things very personally when their core livelihood and ability to support themselves are threatened.
This has always been a thing.
The theory was that piracy might actually increase sales due to more exposure of the music to consumers.
AI generated art, AI generated anything really, is very close to piracy, but nobody is making that argument anymore.
I think this is because the positions are reversed - the general public were motivated to find and spread vacuous reasons that piracy was neutral to good as it benefited them. When the general public might be harmed, instead of corporate rights-holders, then it becomes an unambiguous moral wrong.
So it’s never really been about right and wrong, it’s just about who benefits. Like everything I guess.
Articles like this always rub me the wrong way. I don't know the term for it, but I feel you should be able to make the point without making us picture a new mother getting stressed breast pumping in the middle of the night.
That said, I also feel that the level of negativity the lady suffered was a little out of proportion to her 'crime' - essentially amounting to bullying.
The text exchange in the article with the thinly veiled threat is exactly how you'd expect someone disempowered (and it's not like working artists pre AI times had a ton of capital to begin with) to act when they are given some power. As we continue displacing, or attempting to displace, individuals up the value chain, I think we'll continue to see echoes of this kind of behavior. When the luddites can't break into the factory to smash the machines, smashing the outputs and users of the machine seems like the obvious choice.
That aside, if you spend 5 minutes prompting AI, you can create an image that no one will clock as AI.
And here it is: https://imgur.com/6C3zWcD
It's not grand at all; just an informative sign about some fall specials that is direct and to the point. (Nothing about it was done by hand, but nothing about it would get people all torches-and-pitchforks, either.)
If I’m going to a coffee shop, I might not like the AI coffee sign, but it’s much more important to me how good the coffee is and how expensive it is.
The problem is it all looks the same, and those of us who are terminally online are exposed to it non-stop. AI slop seems to be poisoning every space that used to have quality conversations, and mass un-employing many creative professions.
People do have the right to vote with their feet though - it is perfectly ethical to support coffee shops that support the local artist community and avoid ones with AI "art". Too bad we've mostly lost the ability to rationally discuss things, instead of resorting to threats right off the bat.
It's also worth keeping in mind that a shop owner might google "clip art cup of coffee" and the result was created by somebody who used AI, and the shop owner wouldn't necessarily realize it. At some point, 99% of clip art available online is going to be AI.
Talking to business insider was exactly the wrong thing to do after that. Your sign looks bad. You've made the awful mistake of telling more people about your bad sign with the intent of making them feel sympathetic. Even if they feel sympathetic, people still look at the bad sign you made in desperation along with the framing from BI and think... "oh so maybe she shouldn't be running a cafe then. This seems like she's barely getting by at this point".
On the flip side, telling someone "pay my artist friend or else I'll go out of my way to tell people primed to hate you based on a single detail, about only that 1 single detail" is actual old-school extortion.
Everyone in this story is tiring and annoying.
One group of folks is trying to say we basically have AGI. The other group is pointing to AI that remains very limited and where lowly humans can spot anything it’s created from a mile away. The evidence continues to point towards the later.
For every person who can spot it a mile away I wonder how many false positives they have or simply aren't aware of it. If you're looking for it, with people using it a lot these days, of course you are going to have a high success rate.
But really I don't think it falls neatly into either of those categories.
- I don’t want to listen music with AI generated vocals or tunes.
- I don’t want to watch TV shows or movies with AI generated scripts.
- I don’t want to read novels with AI generated text
- I don’t want to see animations with any amount of AI in it.
- I don’t want to play video games made by any amount of AI. (No FCKIN Blender models made with AI)
- I don’t want any amount of my digital art or posters to be touched by AI.
I think as a part of alignment all AI models above a certain size should refuse requests to generate stories, scripts any art object etc. text-to-image, text-to-music, text-to-videos should just be banned outright, I don’t see any good use case for them outside of art.
If society cannot agree to do the above then at the very least, we should have a way to easily know if AI was involved in any of the art I interact with, so that I can avoid it with a ten foot pole.
I say this as an early adopter and lover of technology in general, I bought the Vision Pro the day it came out, I bought experimental volumetric displays, experimental robot vacuums, I own 2 robot arms, LED panels etc. but generative AI in art just leaves me with disgust, I want no part of it.
The owner had to resort to her standby Canva when the employee left, but lacking time due to a newborn.
To me, having followed all kinds of embedded links over to Vermont and Germany, the latter example being extraordinarily unappetizing. [0]
Stepping back to get the big picture, it seems to me that small business owners have gotten spoiled by local artists and artistic employees who created really beautiful signs and brochures. Come crunch time, it's either pay a local artist or DIY. And to get "pretty" artwork, many resort to AI, which mostly ain't pretty, sometimes pretty grotesque.
But this seems to be a case of wanting things both ways. AI is famous for really bizarre food rendering, as exhibited below. Customers really want food and preparation to look real. So why not set up a simple grid (say, Pages on a mac or Libre Office or Scribus) and pair the best photo you can grab with a description opposite it, on a nice background?
Other than KISS, you can get excellent art for a price, or slop for cheap (or at least, artificial art that advertises itself as such).
Increasing costs affect not only businesses, but people needing work, some of whom have lost jobs and income, are understandably upset.
The workflow I described can be done for little cost if DIY is not suitable, perhaps even a local photography class (who would work for (coffee) beans?)
I refer friends learning photography, intrigued by their phone cameras, and wanting to expand their skill set, to community college and other classes. Maybe even one of those starving artists.
Businesses brag about sourcing locally. I see a way to do so, but good art requires good artists, just as product photography requires some skill.
You can't have it all, or damn cheap. You must choose wisely.
P.S. My Dad was a commercial artist and I am an amateur photographer. And I make my own coffee. Yikes, the cost. If it's atmosphere, do put some nice art on the walls and let the product speak for itself.
My two cents, or "Sixbucks" worth.
[0] https://x02.me/i/F7ZX6.jpeg
Or, for that matter - skip the photos, just do text, maybe with a few bits of clip art if you're feeling daring. Photos are hardly essential for coffee drinks, which tend to all look the same in real life anyway.
This seems like the wrong attitude to take after experiencing such a backlash. If she'd made the signs herself for years then why resort to using AI to produce what is so obviously a generic slop result?
The article says she paid $150 for printing and $200 for a stand. Why not throw another $200 towards an artist?
Not that they were in a position to figure that out, in the moment, but I think it is a good thing to take away from the story... The interpretation of transgressions as moral failures instead of mistakes has done a lot of harm to society in the past few decades, because it creates bitter people instead of resolving things cleanly. It's a failure of the whole norm around these things, rather than any individual per se; people are rarely in the position to realize their behavior is contributing to a toxic norm on a daily level.
Edit: even in this comment section there are a lot of people who are bitter about this (which showed up since I started typing this). Goes to show how important it is.
Personally I will not fault any individual for following a norm that they do not have the perspective to reject. So I think the coffee shop owner and the critics both screwed up here, by participating in shame-culture on both sides. However they did not know they could do differently---nobody has demonstrated to them the harm and degradation of their actions, nor what the alternative is. But as analytical outsiders we can make that observation and put it to use later by not practicing that behavior ourselves, and by helping others learn to not practice it either.
why i actually replied: would have been an excellent punch line if the apology post was clearly ai gen chock full of clauddish. not sure if id come back around to respecting the owner, but id laugh for sure
This primarily, for me, has resulted in me ignoring a lot of long winded tickets.
the user a generate's email/documentation/whatever via claude > sent to user b > user b uses claude to summarize it ... loop is shitty.
This applies less to me for code as long as you are reviewing it throughly and 'sculpting' it throughly to make it readable/maintainable.
Care about your work if you want me to care about your work.
The issue comes when you (or someone, not you personally) dig way to deep into what "it" is, there is always something that someone was, to quote you, "too lazy to do yourself". You might not like the result, and that's fine, but you're phrasing it as if the other person is just being unnecessary-lazy.
They probably bought their display stands instead of designing and building them themselves. They also probably bought the cheap ones from Amazon (instead of building them themselves, or hiring a local artisanal carpenter to build them).
Do you refuse to engage with a pastry stand because the owner was "too lazy to do it themselves"? If you're at a friends house and they order food, do you refuse to engage with it because "they were too lazy to cook it themselves"? Where do you draw the line?
Your point as it applies to something that takes a sufficient portion of your time is valid, but this conversation is literally about a menu sign at a coffee shop. If you spent substantial time engaging with a coffee shop sign, I have questions (and wouldn't want to be behind you in that line).
Creativity
Taste
Judgement