The tool is getting blamed here when it's people that are using it that are at fault.
When McDonald's uses 10s cooked patties with plastic and craft materials to make their fotos it isn't exactly any different then when a restaurant AI generates pictures of their menu's. The Burger at McDonald's has never looked like the pictures nor will it ever.
It's a choice the owner has and if they oversell expectations it's on them to deal with the consequences. At some point it also becomes fraud.
When I took my daughter to a birthday party the other weekend, the playplace where the party was held had multiple party rooms, each with a large themed mural covering the walls. We were in the "dinosaur room" and the art was obviously AI-generated. This crap is everywhere.
I have a coworker who used AI to generate music for a funeral using prompts with facts about the life of the deceased. (He just mentioned this offhand one day like it was no big deal.) I guess he "saved money" by not hiring a human musician.
Was the mural handpainted or just a print glued to the wall? I feel even something handdrawn from ai generated inspiration could go a long way to add some quality. Even if just by the fact that no one would spend hours to trace terrible slop by hand.
> AI art has also seeped into the actual haunted houses themselves. AtmosFX, one of the largest providers of digital projections to the haunt industry, has admitted to using AI to create some of their characters.
Bastiat's "seen and unseen". You see the cheap-looking AI graphics. You don't see the extra rooms they could afford to build, the ticket that might be $5 cheaper, or the new haunted house in your area that only exists because a small operator can now open one without hiring a studio.
So 'ruining' here means "it's used, and the author has a bias against AI".
For the vast, vast majority of people, this will make either little difference, or improve the experience.
Modern image generation has fixed most of the obvious tell-tales like mangled hands, square pupils, etc. And the few that remain end up looking like spooky things, which are pretty good for scary art anyhow.
Also ignoring the fact that without AI many of these offerings would be pricier, lower quality, or just nonexistent.
The usual counterargument is “well I would gladly pay more for man-made art!” which is a fair personal preference, but judging by the market most people clearly disagree, and businesses aren't obligated to cater to your niche.
I'd love a world where people have choice. Instead we're left with all the shit the general population deems sufficient, and everything just gets worse and worse.
Yes, even though I'm ok with its use in many circumstances, if I can immediately tell it's AI that usually means the person was very lazy when making it. It's boring when everything looks the same.
gen AI is being used instead of real picture products on aliexpress and amazon. you aren't even getting what's advertised.
same for things that advertise scenes that do not match up to reality.
some countries have laws against false advertising, with good reason.
I know the AI ultras get mad when you point out that AI slop is bad quality, looks bad, and results in a worse aesthetic experience, but it's reasonable to have taste and to rebel against all design and illustration being brought down to the level of obvious low-effort content. Just because you have no taste, does not mean that other people must have no taste, or that having taste is somehow elitist.
The tradeoff you gotta contend with is that by making AI-style art effectively zero-cost and everywhere, not only does it immediately signal zero effort/taste on the part of the people using it, it also makes everything look the same. Composition, color choices, and style of AI-generated art is so samey, and people respond to that sameness negatively, for good reason.
As an art teacher of mine often quipped, it does not matter if it took you five minutes to make it, it just can't look like it took you five minutes to make it. Art tickles the brain when the viewer perceives aesthetic choices being made -- interesting, sometimes surprising, or skillful ones -- and the choice of AI-generated art signals to the viewer that no such choices were made.
(If AI is used is actually ultimately irrelevant, it's whether something is crap and lazy people can tell it's crap and lazy.)
There's actually rock-solid proof of this in the article:
> So, imagine my disappointment when I walked up to my first haunted attraction of the year and was immediately greeted by low‑quality AI art. One of the images was so bad that it even included the Gemini diamond in the lower‑right corner of the page.
The image in question is a sign or menu, the sort of thing that's usually neither good nor bad. Here it's exceptionally bad because it "included the Gemini diamond." In other words, it's exceptionally bad because it's AI, and for no other reason.
At this point, I don't know if it has much to do with quality...
What it had to do with quality is that nobody actually cared enough to review the art. No taste, no attention to detail, not even a basic walkthrough to evaluate whether anything breaks the 4th wall.
Since this is primarily still a programming site, consider mediocre code that looks like it works but clearly nobody actually made an effort to make sure.
In this case I think part of the "bad" was the clear lack of care shown by leaving in the AI "brand" in the end result. "Slop" is a perfect term to apply there.
> However, AI art is especially dangerous for haunted attractions. For haunts, promotional materials are also meant to be indicative of what the experience will be like. AI art can, and often does, give a very misleading impression of what the haunted house will be like.
This is the main reason I heavily dislike the obviously AI generated Flyers, posters and menus you see so often nowadays. When i look at your menu, flyer or poster, the main thing I want to know is "What is this and what can i expect from it?". Real photos of your actual food, embedded in an AI generated layout/design? Good! Great even! "Chatgpt, please make me a flyer for my burger joint"? might as well have a no pictures plaintext flyer/menu.
I’m on the fence reading the other comments. On one hand I hate stock AI art, it looks like crap and signals that someone didn’t care at all and has zero taste. On the other hand, most peoples Halloween decorations are dollar-store made in China garbage, it’s not like we’re retreating from a world of lovingly hand-crafted decorations towards AI hell. I think a lot of it is really the anger it inspires due to the connotations (for me primarily of low effort and ignorance) rather than anything objective. I still hate it.
AI art has made attractive graphic design available to the masses. I don't get the hatred for them since they both look good and wouldn't exist without AI.
The "usual fairground airbrushed abominations" at least have a distinctive style and mean that someone cares enough to do more than type into a computer a few times and say "eh, good enough."
I would be more interested in a flyer that was in rainbow comic sans, than one that just made up what it will look like because it can't see the actual event
I much preferred the fake photos—as in not photos of food served at that restaurant—than the AI generated images of food that doesn't exist at all on menus, as an example.
I also hate that Etsy is now mostly an AI-image gallery.
First, most AI generated art and graphic design isn't attractive. It certainly isn't more attractive than what amateurs have always come up with. I know AI enjoyers don't want to admit it, or don't care, but where aesthetics are concerned it does actually matter what people think and most people don't like it.
Second, and more importantly, graphic design (like programming, game development, video production and everything else AI enjoyers claim to be "liberating" from "the gatekeepers") was already available to the masses. Often the only gatekeepers are imagination and effort, and if AI enjoyers don't want to put in either, it isn't surprising the results are so often ugly and mediocre.
>>It certainly isn't more attractive than what amateurs have always come up with.
These events(amateur ones anyway) usually have a comic sans flyer made in word with some clip art pumpkins, let's be realistic. The art and the flyers shown in the article look great.
I want a haunted house based on Harlan Ellison's "I Have no Mouth but I Must Scream", where they duct tape your mouth and torment you with AI generated attrocities.
>>When I go to a new restaurant and see an AI-generated menu, I’m disappointed.
Why. I literally don't understand it. Is the menu clear? Is the food good? Why would you be disappointed over a _menu_ of all things? I could maybe understand it if I went to a Michelin star restaurant for a £400/head tasting menu and they had an AI generated menu - purely because I'd feel like if I'm spending this much money, I expect you to actually have a silk wrapped menu written by hand, ideally. But at a local pizza place? Who cares?(I mean obviously you do, but I don't see why)
The tool is getting blamed here when it's people that are using it that are at fault.
When McDonald's uses 10s cooked patties with plastic and craft materials to make their fotos it isn't exactly any different then when a restaurant AI generates pictures of their menu's. The Burger at McDonald's has never looked like the pictures nor will it ever.
It's a choice the owner has and if they oversell expectations it's on them to deal with the consequences. At some point it also becomes fraud.
When I took my daughter to a birthday party the other weekend, the playplace where the party was held had multiple party rooms, each with a large themed mural covering the walls. We were in the "dinosaur room" and the art was obviously AI-generated. This crap is everywhere.
It's anywhere someone can save money. We all use it, to save money why shouldn't others?
I have a coworker who used AI to generate music for a funeral using prompts with facts about the life of the deceased. (He just mentioned this offhand one day like it was no big deal.) I guess he "saved money" by not hiring a human musician.
I really, really wish I were making this up.
Hmmm so when CEOs use this excuse to fire devs it is bad but not for cutting out artists?
So any use is good as long as it saves money. There are no tradeoffs or reasons not to use it?
Was the mural handpainted or just a print glued to the wall? I feel even something handdrawn from ai generated inspiration could go a long way to add some quality. Even if just by the fact that no one would spend hours to trace terrible slop by hand.
From the article:
> AI art has also seeped into the actual haunted houses themselves. AtmosFX, one of the largest providers of digital projections to the haunt industry, has admitted to using AI to create some of their characters.
Big TV and projectors are very cheap now.
Bastiat's "seen and unseen". You see the cheap-looking AI graphics. You don't see the extra rooms they could afford to build, the ticket that might be $5 cheaper, or the new haunted house in your area that only exists because a small operator can now open one without hiring a studio.
So 'ruining' here means "it's used, and the author has a bias against AI".
For the vast, vast majority of people, this will make either little difference, or improve the experience.
Modern image generation has fixed most of the obvious tell-tales like mangled hands, square pupils, etc. And the few that remain end up looking like spooky things, which are pretty good for scary art anyhow.
Also ignoring the fact that without AI many of these offerings would be pricier, lower quality, or just nonexistent.
The usual counterargument is “well I would gladly pay more for man-made art!” which is a fair personal preference, but judging by the market most people clearly disagree, and businesses aren't obligated to cater to your niche.
I'd love a world where people have choice. Instead we're left with all the shit the general population deems sufficient, and everything just gets worse and worse.
They haven't gotten rid of the biggest tell though; the fact that it looks like mass produced AI art.
Yes, even though I'm ok with its use in many circumstances, if I can immediately tell it's AI that usually means the person was very lazy when making it. It's boring when everything looks the same.
Or is it only the cheesy low effort AI art that you spot?
gen AI is being used instead of real picture products on aliexpress and amazon. you aren't even getting what's advertised. same for things that advertise scenes that do not match up to reality. some countries have laws against false advertising, with good reason.
> "bias against AI"
I know the AI ultras get mad when you point out that AI slop is bad quality, looks bad, and results in a worse aesthetic experience, but it's reasonable to have taste and to rebel against all design and illustration being brought down to the level of obvious low-effort content. Just because you have no taste, does not mean that other people must have no taste, or that having taste is somehow elitist.
The tradeoff you gotta contend with is that by making AI-style art effectively zero-cost and everywhere, not only does it immediately signal zero effort/taste on the part of the people using it, it also makes everything look the same. Composition, color choices, and style of AI-generated art is so samey, and people respond to that sameness negatively, for good reason.
As an art teacher of mine often quipped, it does not matter if it took you five minutes to make it, it just can't look like it took you five minutes to make it. Art tickles the brain when the viewer perceives aesthetic choices being made -- interesting, sometimes surprising, or skillful ones -- and the choice of AI-generated art signals to the viewer that no such choices were made.
(If AI is used is actually ultimately irrelevant, it's whether something is crap and lazy people can tell it's crap and lazy.)
There's actually rock-solid proof of this in the article:
> So, imagine my disappointment when I walked up to my first haunted attraction of the year and was immediately greeted by low‑quality AI art. One of the images was so bad that it even included the Gemini diamond in the lower‑right corner of the page.
The image in question is a sign or menu, the sort of thing that's usually neither good nor bad. Here it's exceptionally bad because it "included the Gemini diamond." In other words, it's exceptionally bad because it's AI, and for no other reason.
At this point, I don't know if it has much to do with quality...
What it had to do with quality is that nobody actually cared enough to review the art. No taste, no attention to detail, not even a basic walkthrough to evaluate whether anything breaks the 4th wall.
Since this is primarily still a programming site, consider mediocre code that looks like it works but clearly nobody actually made an effort to make sure.
In this case I think part of the "bad" was the clear lack of care shown by leaving in the AI "brand" in the end result. "Slop" is a perfect term to apply there.
> However, AI art is especially dangerous for haunted attractions. For haunts, promotional materials are also meant to be indicative of what the experience will be like. AI art can, and often does, give a very misleading impression of what the haunted house will be like.
This is the main reason I heavily dislike the obviously AI generated Flyers, posters and menus you see so often nowadays. When i look at your menu, flyer or poster, the main thing I want to know is "What is this and what can i expect from it?". Real photos of your actual food, embedded in an AI generated layout/design? Good! Great even! "Chatgpt, please make me a flyer for my burger joint"? might as well have a no pictures plaintext flyer/menu.
AI isn't ruining anything. AI is just a tool. Lazy people ruin things when they don't care about quality.
Well - not really though. AI is ruining everything.
I’m on the fence reading the other comments. On one hand I hate stock AI art, it looks like crap and signals that someone didn’t care at all and has zero taste. On the other hand, most peoples Halloween decorations are dollar-store made in China garbage, it’s not like we’re retreating from a world of lovingly hand-crafted decorations towards AI hell. I think a lot of it is really the anger it inspires due to the connotations (for me primarily of low effort and ignorance) rather than anything objective. I still hate it.
Might be easier to list the things AI isn't ruining.
AI art has made attractive graphic design available to the masses. I don't get the hatred for them since they both look good and wouldn't exist without AI.
Nothing is attractive about AI art like shown in the article
Is it worse than the usual fairground airbrushed abominations, though? Because that’s essentially what it’s competing with.
The "usual fairground airbrushed abominations" at least have a distinctive style and mean that someone cares enough to do more than type into a computer a few times and say "eh, good enough."
Yes, easily.
...how? The art in the article looks great.
> wouldn't exist without AI.
Which would be good?
No, it means the promotion would suck and I wouldn't be interested in events that I would be interested in if marketed to me correctly.
I would be more interested in a flyer that was in rainbow comic sans, than one that just made up what it will look like because it can't see the actual event
I much preferred the fake photos—as in not photos of food served at that restaurant—than the AI generated images of food that doesn't exist at all on menus, as an example. I also hate that Etsy is now mostly an AI-image gallery.
First, most AI generated art and graphic design isn't attractive. It certainly isn't more attractive than what amateurs have always come up with. I know AI enjoyers don't want to admit it, or don't care, but where aesthetics are concerned it does actually matter what people think and most people don't like it.
Second, and more importantly, graphic design (like programming, game development, video production and everything else AI enjoyers claim to be "liberating" from "the gatekeepers") was already available to the masses. Often the only gatekeepers are imagination and effort, and if AI enjoyers don't want to put in either, it isn't surprising the results are so often ugly and mediocre.
>>It certainly isn't more attractive than what amateurs have always come up with.
These events(amateur ones anyway) usually have a comic sans flyer made in word with some clip art pumpkins, let's be realistic. The art and the flyers shown in the article look great.
Attractive? Have you ever seen one of these obnoxious food cart menus? Anything meat looks like a ton of puree'd maggots. Utterly revolting.
Is nothing sacred?
I feel you. This years Halloween is full of AI slop costumes
I want a haunted house based on Harlan Ellison's "I Have no Mouth but I Must Scream", where they duct tape your mouth and torment you with AI generated attrocities.
>>When I go to a new restaurant and see an AI-generated menu, I’m disappointed.
Why. I literally don't understand it. Is the menu clear? Is the food good? Why would you be disappointed over a _menu_ of all things? I could maybe understand it if I went to a Michelin star restaurant for a £400/head tasting menu and they had an AI generated menu - purely because I'd feel like if I'm spending this much money, I expect you to actually have a silk wrapped menu written by hand, ideally. But at a local pizza place? Who cares?(I mean obviously you do, but I don't see why)