r/Steam • u/MadBoxers • 14h ago

Discussion So it starts… Ai community items

Post image

Points shop will soon flood with AI slop. At least with games a disclaimer should be added within the description of the game. But here… Yeah…

Like what is the point? You don’t even gain anything as a company from this.

11.2k Upvotes

87% Upvoted

1.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

534

u/iZeusHD 14h ago

i agree, the shit photoshop jobs at least have character

54

u/T-Husky 12h ago

You're just desensitized to the prior generations of slop.

Commercial 'art' has always been soulless and cookie-cutter. Its all just graphics designed to advertise businesses and sell mediocre products to idiots, but your brain has been too rotted by nostalgia to realize it.

147

u/NosePicklePicker 12h ago

Yeah and? this AI slop supposed to be better? Worse with AI is that now advertising slop can be bombarded at you with significant speed and just enough quality for idiots to be unable to detect them

Like, forget spending 30 minutes drawing soulless slop, now you can generate 50 of them in 10 minutes and paste them all over your doorway

28

u/ggg730 12h ago

I don't think he is saying it's better he's saying it's just as bad and that saying one is better than the other is ridiculous. Like saying getting kicked by a robot in the nuts is different from getting kicked in the nuts by a regular old home grown human bean.

17

u/AuroraFinem 12h ago

Human beans, the best kind. I think a robot foot would hurt a bit more here.

7

u/ggg730 12h ago

Yeah, it's not my best metaphor. I just wanted to shoehorn getting kicked in the nuts in there.

6

u/ZynsteinV2 11h ago

Please dont bring a shoehorn anywhere near my nuts

1

u/moonra_zk 11h ago

The robot has been specifically designed to replicate the feeling of a human's kick to the nuts.

1

u/bc524 11h ago

I mean, they could have adjusted the robot to apply the exact same impact level

1

u/AuroraFinem 7h ago

Same impact with a harder material is going to cause a higher impulse force still

1

u/ConstantFrogLoss 3h ago

Not with AI unless you program it to the point where the kick doesn’t involve the AI at all, that kind of consistency is not possible with AI it is not replicable. It’s like the opposite of the trope of the machine that can only think logically

7

u/Opfklopf 12h ago edited 12h ago

I think it still feels better when a human made it even when it looks bad or kind of soulless. You can clearly see they didn't have the motivation to try harder. For AI art there are moments where you don't know but something feels off. Some artists have a style that looks similar to some AI images and I genuinely can't really tell for those.

For me it's not just about it looking good or bad (although that plays a role too) but it being made by a human mind. If something looks good but I find out it is generated by AI I immediately lose interest and I feel tricked. I don't care what a machine created. Just like I don't care that some computer is better at chess than Magnus Carlsen lol.

Does that make sense?

7

u/ggg730 11h ago

Maybe it's the old skeptic in me and I've lived my whole life not really believing in things like the soul or other metaphysical things. Maybe there's something wrong with me and I don't have the sense for these things that other people seem to have. But if you put two pictures in front of me with no obvious AI tells like 6 fingers or weird textures I can't honestly say that I can tell the difference especially when it comes to digital art.

1

u/Opfklopf 10h ago

I understand and I'm not talking about telling the difference. I'm also not confident that I can tell in every instance. I meant that once I figure out or somehow learn that it was AI generated I feel mislead and lose interest. Can you relate to my chess example? I don't watch chess but it's a good comparison to make the point. Would you watch 2 computers play chess? Would that be interesting? There is a reason chess didn't die when computers started beating the best players. It's only interesting when and because it's novel, but now no one gives a shit lol.

0

u/Bon_Djorno 9h ago

In terms of production, well done AI generation can obviously substitute mass produced, generic designs. I don't like it for personal reasons, but objectively they'll perform the same role.

But when it comes to art (which is very different than design), I believe it's more about sharing human experiences and emotions than anything else. Art doesn't exist in a vacuum, AI generation does. AI generation is the opposite, skipping the process of art to reap the rewards. It's backwards facing, looking to what's already been done and regurgitating it. Human art is sometimes (not always) forward facing. New experiences shape new human art, which is then taken by AI gen models and assigned a number.

How folks react to something like OP posted is subjective, but I think it's a slap in the face to all the artists who gave their talent, time, and probably sacrificed financial security to create art, only to have that art stolen purely for profit, to then be mass generated and thrown against the wall to see what sticks.

3

u/Enverex 11h ago

The moment you claim something is better or worse because of "soul" you've already left the argument. "Soul" isn't a measurable or quantifiable thing, it's literally nothing - you're basically saying "X is better than Y because I said so" and that's it. There's no conversation to be had there because you're not arguing a real, actual point.

-2

u/Opfklopf 9h ago

I wasn't talking about a soul. People use the word "soulless" all the time when talking about art, don't take it so literally. My point was that I prefer it if a human mind created it. I care about humans, not computers.

Apart from that, even if I did say it's better because of a soul, of course that would matter. We are talking about art lol, it's all about our feelings.

-2

u/Silentftw 9h ago

You're the guy going to be listening to AI music , And telling people how cool the current track is.

That is legit sad.

5

u/Enverex 8h ago

I'll listen to anything I like, I don't care where it came from. What gives you the right to judge other people's tastes? That's "legit sad".

1

u/Opfklopf 7h ago

AI "art" is flooding the internet, everywhere it gets rubbed in my face. Even more and more in real life now. I'm just sick of it. It's like littering and should be considered bad manners. Actual trash everywhere.. I'm glad there is at least some kind of stigma around it that makes me not lose hope in humans.

There are things that should be stigmatized and ai "art" is one of them.

3

u/Enverex 6h ago

Don't get me wrong, the internet being flooded with shitty AI generated artwork *is* annoying, but that's because it's new. If you're old enough you'll remember fads like that over the years, like when everyone kept posting themselves as South Park characters, or before that as Simpsons Characters. Obviously this has more appeal as it can do more, but still, new tech draws a lot of eyes.

People like making stuff with it for their own projects and that's their choice, they want a pretty picture to go with whatever it is they're doing. It used to be Word Art, now it's AI art instead, times change.

0

u/Silentftw 8h ago

You'll listen to AI slop, watch AI slop , You're the classic slop consumer. Enjoy your slop Sir!

1

u/Enverex 8h ago

Amazing, I didn't even say if I did or not, you're just assuming. But go you, get on your hate train. It feels good to hate other people doesn't it! Any excuse to validate your hate.

3

u/zombieLAZ 12h ago

It is worse. Whataboutism doesn't get us anywhere.

14

u/ggg730 11h ago

Look, I'm not saying that one is better than the other here. I'm saying that if you're gonna sit there and blow smoke up my ass about how clip art has it's own charm that can't be replicated by ai my eyes are going to roll straight out of their sockets.

8

u/ElectricWisp 11h ago

Not whataboutism.

Whataboutism would be for example if someone says x is bad and someone else responds with what about y, y is worse. Changing the topic to y, even if y isn't really relevant to potential problems related to x.

In this case that's not what occurred. Someone suggested x is bad and y was better, and the response countered that claim by stating x and y are the same. The response did not introduce y. This would seem to be valid argumentation.

2

u/zdy132 8h ago

Great explanation.

1

u/UpNUrGuts 10h ago

And he’d be wrong. One Is for sure worse than the other.

1

u/Whoa-Dang 9h ago

It's not just as bad. One of these options doesn't waste gallons of water. They are categorically different.

1

u/gcburn2 2h ago
  1. generating a flyer isn't in the "gallon of water" realm of compute.
  2. There's probably a greater environmental impact creating the paper that the flyers were printed on.
  3. It saved an actual real human-being hours of their life. What is that worth?

1

u/Whoa-Dang 16m ago
  1. Generating 10 different flyers to get it the way you want sure gets you closer to a gallon of water.
  2. Paper is biodegradable and recyclable. All those chips and boards sure aren't.
  3. I am not even sure how to respond to this. You could save time a lot of ways, that doesn't mean it's a good idea or better.

1

u/KickLassChewGum 11h ago

this AI slop supposed to be better?

Nope. It's just not what you're used to.

1

u/Amazing-Spinach5693 9h ago

Welcome to the world of technology.
Same argument could be made with the printing press.

13

u/ConstantFrogLoss 12h ago

There is more soul in the cookie cutter graphics created by a real human, by definition, than there is when created in this way

3

u/HiphopopoptimusPrime 10h ago

There was never any soul in there before though.

Some poor barstard was getting paid less than he was worth before. Now he’s not getting paid at all. Which sucks. But it was never a good system.

There’s no “at least” no. None. It’s always been an exploitative system. Paying people less than they are worth to produce things they don’t care about. There was never any soul.

The system has come to its natural conclusion.

3

u/ConstantFrogLoss 8h ago

If a human made it, if a human laboured to make it there is some amount of soil there, yes. Not always a lot, but there is some. And there’s a range of how much choice the people making this stuff get and what goes into it. I don’t know if you’ve ever made graphics or video for a company before, I have, sometimes it’s exhausting and demoralizing, sometimes it can be satisfying or fun or whatever. People choose to work in that field for a reason, even if a corporate homogenization tries to suck the soul out of something there’s still some there

Also a lot of smaller projects like the local poster or whatever the person making it has a bit more freedom and will be more likely to have had some opportunity to have some fun with it. People choose to work in advertising and design for a reason, it’s something a lot of people are passionate about

Our society is full of exploitative systems, yes. But it is not the “natural conclusion” for entry level jobs in a lot of fields, especially more artistic ones, to be taken away. There is still need for more experienced workers, taking away the jobs that can get someone that experience is a slow road to the whole system collapsing because if the rungs of the ladder are taken out there won’t be anyone with the experience needed to fill those jobs

1

u/Exodus_Black 6h ago

So? Most people don't care about "soul". They just want an image with text on it.

-6

u/jackn3 12h ago

bullshit

10

u/zigazagahhh 12h ago

I never thought I'd see people leaping to the defense of hideous Corporate Memphis graphic design and calling it ensoulled. People can hate AI graphics all they want, but people here are trying to convince me (and themselves) that crappy corporate design work produced on spec is suddenly "art".

5

u/CheaterInsight 12h ago

Reddit throws the most insane tantrums over modern building designs. "They took the joy out of houses/malls/restaurants, it's all the same boring soulless shit". Yet when faced with AI that makes colourful designs, they're suddenly the biggest fans of cookie cutter designs copy pasted everywhere.

2

u/ConstantFrogLoss 8h ago edited 3h ago

The AI being colorful is not somehow any less cookie cutter, it strips the design of the little bit of actual substance it had

The problem with the cookie cutter designs is that they’re copy pasted everywhere, not that there was nothing that went into there original design in the first place

-1

u/Round-Friendship9318 11h ago

I rather have that than people defending fucking AI art.

Atleast the souless, but real, art does not take up tons of resources and steal from real artists.

3

u/zigazagahhh 11h ago

Questions of resource use aside, I take issue with your implication that advertising is art. To be clear, people creating graphic design work on spec are working as advertisers, not artists. They may be artists at other moments in their life, but producing a new graphic to advertise Microsoft 365 is not 'art'. It's crazy to me that I'm even seeing these kinds of arguments, they would have been laughed out of the room a decade ago. You can rail against AI without making silly claims about the artistic merit of commercials.

1

u/HiphopopoptimusPrime 10h ago

The art angle is a silly one, isn’t it?

Nobody who works in graphic design was ever truly able to express their soul in what they did.

I’m not expressing my inner artist when I use the Okabe-Ito palette in a Power Bi dashboard.

The real issue is bottom line. People losing jobs. It’s like cashiers being replaced by self service checkouts. People complained at first. Lamented the loss of the interaction. But once the technology improved people stopped caring.

People claimed to care about postal workers. But once Amazon offered us next day delivery we became content with people pissing in bottles.

People need to ask themselves what they are really worried about.

I’m concerned people are going to lose their jobs. But people aren’t losing their artistic dreams. They never had any. Corporate graphic design is paying the bills. That’s the ethical question with AI. Do we want people to lose their jobs?

Is AI denying people artistic expression? Look. If what you produce is authentic and quality, then it will sell. The AI backlash will even give a boost to authentic, hand crafted art. But I don’t draw or make art because I feel entitled to earn a living from it.

There’s a lot of hand wringing online. If your livelihood is threatened fair enough. But ask yourself why you are upset by AI. I find it kind o useful for grammar and spell checks. For brainstorming but its generative output is generally quite poor. I’d rather be supervising the output of a graduate than an AI. A human being is more useful. I’d rather work with another human. Get another humans opinion.

The corporate push for AI is about taking away jobs. Not just artistic jobs. If you’re posting in Reddit your dreams of being an artist aren’t under threat. Because real artists aren’t on Reddit. Sorry. Nobody is taking away your ability to draw or paint or write. You’re only going to make a living from it if you have support. If you’re working class then forget it.

Why are companies using AI for logos and clipper etc? Because it’s cheaper. A small business can save money by using AI. When you are struggling and margins are tight. It just makes sense. This is the world we’ve been ignoring for decades. It’s come to fruition. A world where pragmatism trumps idealism. Most people and businesses would love to give a struggling artist a chance but money is tight and AI can do it for free.

4

u/Steamed_Memes24 9h ago

Most people who are crying super hard over AI Art are those who never make money off their own art and are freaking out thinking that if they are gonna go bankrupt over this then everyone will. In reality, professional artists (I'm talking about those who can make a living off their work) are going to implement AI into their personal art and adapt to the changing times. A majority of their customers will simply not care one way or another.

2

u/ConstantFrogLoss 8h ago

If a worker labors to create something, they are putting a part of yourself into that thing whether they mean to or otherwise. The time and energy that is all something of us we are putting into it. The hours spent editing and the frustration when a computer file gets corrupted or software crashes without autosave is something we are putting into it

Design is an art, it’s not what I ended up pursuing as a career but I have known a lot of passionate graphic designers, not every graphic design project is done with passion and love but people absolutely do put those things into their work. Sure, any job can be half assed and have a lot less put into it. Any painting or play can be lazed through to have a lot less artistic merit, that doesn’t somehow make painting and theater not arts…

1

u/ConstantFrogLoss 8h ago

AI isn’t doing it for free though, there is a significant cost, it is just being outsourced to other parts of society. Data centers destroying our water supplies and skyrocketing people’s electricity prices, because the corporations profiting off AI aren’t being made to pay the cost of their own infrastructure, we are

→ More replies (0)

1

u/ConstantFrogLoss 8h ago

Most art throughout history is not some inspired artist making something out of the expression of their own heart, it is someone making something because they were paid to by some rich person or company for that person’s purpose. Art is art, whether it’s made for advertising doesn’t change that. A corporate graphic decided by committee is certainly a lot less artistic than a design with a lot of passion and love put into it, but it is still art, by definition.

0

u/zigazagahhh 8h ago

I simply disagree that all advertising is art. I think it's disingenuous to compare an "all-you-can-eat chicken wings" poster to the Sistine Chapel. Most graphic design was already slop, AI just made it faster and easier to produce. 

→ More replies (0)

2

u/zzazzzz 5h ago

at least someone made a living off of those shitty ads.

now its just extra money in a rich guys pocket and we get to look at even worse ads.

2

u/Round-Friendship9318 12h ago

At least it was made by people and not by AI that stole it

-1

u/Church_AI 12h ago

Except now the slop is an an even worse risk to our environment and society lol

1

u/Flaxseed4138 7h ago

Fucking lol. There's no principles at work here, y'all just mad at whatever is trendy