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.
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.
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.
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.
You can choose to spend money elsewhere or you can choose to start your own business and promote it as you see fit. How much more power would you deem sufficient?
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.
So the problem is the people lacked attention to detail and failed to provide an immersive experience. That's a classic haunted house problem that goes way back before AI.
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.
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.
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.
From what I recall talking to a photographer, the burger is all actual ingredients. They push everything to the front and angle the shot so it looks bigger than it is. That’s why you just see buns when you get yours, all the ingredients are in the center. But it’s possible to recreate the same pic with enough time and attention to detail. Lighting makes a huge difference as well.
Mcdonalds imagery at least matches the ingredients of the food actually being served, if i see a burger joint with a generic ChatGPT burger i have no idea if they actually have pickles on them or not
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.
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.
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."
Why imagine the mental state of the person using the tool? You have no idea one way or the other how much a hypothetical person cared. Also, what does it mean to "care enough"? Can we measure and quantify caring? What if it turns out the AI user cared more under whatever metric you provide, would that change your mind about the quality of the output?
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.
"When I go to a new restaurant and see an AI-generated menu, I’m disappointed. When I see an AI-generated flyer for an event, I’m annoyed and much less likely to go."
This kind of anti-AI sentiment really is baffling to me, as baffling as anti-trans sentiment.
The two really have a lot in common if you look beneath the surface: both are instances of aggressive intolerance as a response to other people failing to live up to an arbitrary moral standard the aggressor has decided they have the right to impose on other people, whether or not those other people have any interest in the aggressor's arbitrary moral standard.
The response to the aggressor is the same in both circumstances: "but how does that affect you in any way?", with the honest answer being that it doesn't, and the more likely answer being some goofy rationalization invoking the rest of society's collective well-being, as the aggressor fantasizes everyone else as better off if they all also adhered to the aggressor's choice of arbitrary moral framework.
>>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)
For me, it’s because I have no idea what I’m actually choosing from. The description of the burger says it has cheese, lettuce, and tomato. The picture shows pickles and mayo. The patty doesn’t even look like meat. I’m not expecting a professional menu when I go to a burger place, but I’m expecting accuracy. If there was a burger place next door that just had pics of food off a mobile phone printed on the wall, I’d choose there instead.
Does whole experience of having dinner at restaurant involve more than dropping some plates of food on the table and a finale of "Fuck you, pay me"?
If does, then: The menu is an important part of the experience. It's the first part of the experience that involves the food itself, and it leaves an impression just as every other aspect does.
The food delivery services have begun replacing menu descriptions with LLM-generated text. This leads to some hilarious consequences. In all cases, there will be a disconnect between what the restaurant (I should say, Sysco foodservice) is serving up, and what the text says it's supposed to be.
An in-house menu is usually lovingly crafted by the marketing minds, and the glowing description of the food they're serving is at least... accurate, in terms of ingredients and presentation.
For a recent example, a Chinese menu listing egg rolls. The LLM summary says they "sometimes include meat". Well, what kind? And wouldn't it be a good idea to commit to a "yes" or "no" before I order the thing?
I really, really wish I were making this up.
Is abstract art "not real art" if it doesn't generate any emotions at all?
> 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.
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.
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 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.)
This is a major complaint people have had with the TV and movie industry for most of the last two decades.
> 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...
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.
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.
Many if not most restaurants weren't using real photos of their actual food long before gen AI was a thing, especially in promotional materials.
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.
really?
Which would be good?
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.
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.
This kind of anti-AI sentiment really is baffling to me, as baffling as anti-trans sentiment.
The two really have a lot in common if you look beneath the surface: both are instances of aggressive intolerance as a response to other people failing to live up to an arbitrary moral standard the aggressor has decided they have the right to impose on other people, whether or not those other people have any interest in the aggressor's arbitrary moral standard.
The response to the aggressor is the same in both circumstances: "but how does that affect you in any way?", with the honest answer being that it doesn't, and the more likely answer being some goofy rationalization invoking the rest of society's collective well-being, as the aggressor fantasizes everyone else as better off if they all also adhered to the aggressor's choice of arbitrary moral framework.
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)
If does, then: The menu is an important part of the experience. It's the first part of the experience that involves the food itself, and it leaves an impression just as every other aspect does.
An in-house menu is usually lovingly crafted by the marketing minds, and the glowing description of the food they're serving is at least... accurate, in terms of ingredients and presentation.
For a recent example, a Chinese menu listing egg rolls. The LLM summary says they "sometimes include meat". Well, what kind? And wouldn't it be a good idea to commit to a "yes" or "no" before I order the thing?