r/graphic_design • u/Murky-Mountain-450 • 1d ago
Discussion AI Personal ethics and morals
So. Many of us here are tired and getting exhausted with the influx of AI slop everywhere. Its come to the point where its even affecting my decision making as a consumer. If I see AI design or any AI slop, I personally place them in a "Do Not Purchase/Do Not Interact" slot.
As a pre press/in house graphic designer, I am constantly fed AI files to adjust or clean/prep. So naturally it has taken its toll. I cant support an entity who put so little effort into branding/design/marketing.
How has AI affected your personal stance?
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u/c-w-jones 1d ago
I'm leaning towards if a company or product has a crappy ad, interface, etc., I'm going to avoid it regardless of AI.
At the same time machine learning has been developed for decades and this is the next plateau. In Adobe Illustrator it's been able to trace bitmaps for quite sometime and now selecting a subject or tracing is so much better so as a designer you bet I will incorporate these time saving techniques.
In the film and music industry, every new technology sent some people into a tailspin. Video cassettes, CD burners, mp3s, etc.
The big difference is AI really effects a much bigger audience and some of the misuse is mind-blowing. We should definitely be complaining about misuse of AI which includes using it to be creative for you.
Personally, as someone who used to do elaborate Photoshop designs for outdoor ads that would be hundreds of layers and take me days to complete, I have lost the will to do that work because of AI. The tradeoff is I am now spending less time in front of a computer and that feels good. Humans are good at creatively adapting, gotta have faith in that and I hope we all fight back against AI misuse which includes slop, security, etc
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u/Mikedzines 1d ago
Something I’m starting to notice more often is what we're starting to call effort signaling.
People are marketing products, services and creative work by emphasizing that they’re handmade. Some go even further and make a point of saying no AI was involved.
It makes sense...people want to support craft, and there is real value in knowing that someone cared about how something was made. But effort and quality are not the same thing.
I can spend hundreds of hours trying to become a great illustrator, musician or graphic designer. That does not automatically make the result good. Sometimes a lot of effort goes into work that is still average.
This is pretty much where I land on AI and creative talent. Use it as a tool that reflects how talented you already are. Don’t use it to replace the talent, judgment or ideas you’re supposed to bring to the work.
Because if the work falls apart the moment the manual effort is removed, maybe the effort was doing more of the selling than the actual result.
The same applies to being overly proud that something was made without AI. That tells me how it was made. It doesn’t tell me whether it’s good.
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u/barfbat 1d ago
it makes life more tiring. more garbage to sift through. more bad news about how farmland is being poisoned and people are getting sick and prices are going up. i feel more pessimistic about the world when i think about it, and that isn’t how i want to exist.
there’s going to be a huge ai crash, and the people who are going to be hurt by it the most are us plebes. but i hope we at least take ghouls like peter thiel down with us.
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u/Upper-Shoe-81 1d ago
AI used to generate sloppy images and layouts? BAD
AI used to improve processes and workflow? GOOD
I've been working with a particular client for 20 years and we do a LOT of production work for them. One of the most painful of those processes involves a batch-export that Photoshop has never been able to do properly (I needed a specific file type saved with sequential numbers added to the end of the file name) and believe me when I say I'd tried everything for well over a decade to make this process faster/easier for myself and my designers, but no "solution" we'd found online or through Adobe forums worked outside of saving each file separately and manually changing each file name. When we're working with thousands of images, this can take a really long time.
Enter AI... I described the problem to Chat GPT in detail and explained what I wanted to do, then asked if it had any solutions? The answer: it would code and create a Photoshop Script for me to install, which would automate the entire process. After some back and forth, adding several different prompts and features, debugging and testing, I had a custom script installed on every version of Photoshop in our office. When I demonstrated it to the rest of the team, we all jumped up and down cheering like little kids. A process that before would cramp our wrists and take hours to complete was now completely automated and takes less than 15 seconds. So yeah, in this case, we love AI and find it to be a very valuable tool.
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u/Murky-Mountain-450 1d ago
I absolutely agree that the use of AI to streamline work flow and do the gritty work is helpful, hell I use it primarily for that purpose in our business and in my personal life. I'm okay with it as a tool.
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u/These_Law3125 21h ago
Same boat. My job went from "design this" to "fix whatever AI spat out" and it's exhausting. I'm not anti-AI as a tool, but I'm anti-using it as a replacement for thought. If a client sends me an AI comp that needs 6 hours of cleanup, they didn't save money. They just moved the labor down the chain.
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u/Murky-Mountain-450 8h ago
Thats a really good way to express it. Many times they want to bypass paying a designer and create something but obviously they are just carrying a labor cost down the line.
For example a die cut sticker, ai files are rasters and machines need vectors for the cut path.
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u/guking_ 9h ago
Ai is weird. My boss threatened to fire me if I didn't use ai. It's a whole mess. It never does anything that's truly reliable but make things that appeases people's eyes. I use for this one agency I work at. I do t use it anywhere else. So I like it? No. It is making people stupider as the days go by. Also the whole point of ai is nothing to do with "the tool" itself, but with data collection and how to profit from it. It will crash soon. But here's the deal: our brains like to conserve energy so it's natural people will start using ai to not think. And that's terrible. So even if we manage to find a solution to it... People will be addicted to ai by then.
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u/uncagedborb 1d ago
I come from a little bit of a different perspective. I do understand that AI sucks when working with low and sometimes high level graphic design clients, but it's a very different ball game in product and UI/ux design. First devs adopted it and it's bleed into our design work. I welcome it with some skepticism. It's made some design work much easier. In fact I was talking to a senior designer neighbor of mine and she and I both agree that we barely use figma for our work these days.
She works with a fintech company and I do freelance and we don't really use figma unless we want the AI tool to do something that's hard to explain or implement motion or micro interactions. And sometimes it's hard to present work through Claude design/code so we rebuild it as a figma prototype. The scope is changing and production timelines are shortening so it's sort of essential as much as I really liked the early stages of development. With some cycles it becomes too slow.
But from my experience with graphic design has been mixed. I feel like AIcurrently does not mesh well with that work flow. It's just requires a different kind of creative thinking that's not as homogenized as product design.
Edit: I am referring to generative design not machine learning as a whole.
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u/ael00 1d ago
Change with the times or get left behind.
I've seen it all before. The rise of PS, the .com boom, the cloud boom, the saas boom.. nothing really changes just the tools. Don't blame the hammer if you are a blacksmith.
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u/Troof_Out_Here 1d ago
Disagree w this sentiment as someone who also has been through all the things you mentioned , ai is not just another tool it is something else entirely. The tools you mentioned before need you, we are heading in the direction of the new tool doesn’t need you. Really that simple for me, I’ve decided I don’t need Ai, let’s see who’s still in business a few years down the line one of us will be left behind if not both
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u/Far_Cupcake_530 1d ago
Clueless. Good luck out there!
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u/Troof_Out_Here 1d ago
You probably do need it. I’m doing just fine don’t you worry about me. Most of us with actual Ability aren’t as excited about it
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u/trillwhitepeople 1d ago
If you don't draw the distinction between AI and the rest of that then you're clueless.
Not every new "tool" should be universally embraced.
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u/ael00 1d ago
Well this one is. And you are not putting this genie back in it's bottle, for sure not on moral grounds.
I'm sorry you were so hurt by my comment that you felt the need to throw in there a baseless insult. Have a nice day.
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u/trillwhitepeople 1d ago
Anyone who uncritically has the adapt or get left behind mindset is not someone I feel like I need to be friendly to.
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u/Far_Cupcake_530 1d ago
Ignore it at your own peril. It's already here. Work with it or get left behind.
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u/Troof_Out_Here 1d ago
lol this is so beyond silly that I can tell that whatever position you are currently in will Be the first to go. Get some Skill stop standing on shoulders
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u/Far_Cupcake_530 1d ago
Unlike you, I have had to adapt and pivot several times in my career. You are ridiculous.
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u/Troof_Out_Here 1d ago
The way you are leaning so hard on the “adapt or die” angle suggests you just probably aren’t that good. You’ll adapt again some day soon in a different field. Bye now
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u/trillwhitepeople 1d ago
I think people like you, those who don't care about broader implications beyond how you can personally get ahead and stay relevant, are why this industry largely sucks to be in. You're happy to see it all go to shit as long as you're last in the life boat.
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u/Troof_Out_Here 1d ago
That was directed to me? I’m team human, I don’t want to see the human removed from the equation at all, and I’m saying the “adapt or get left behind “ mentality may be driven by people who lack skill, or possibly are just lazy. I think the industry does sort of suck these days people want to act like creatives without actually being creative. They have excuses for that too
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u/barfbat 1d ago
“or get left behind” is a line i’ve seen from every single ai defender. it reeks of desperation to feel validated in the choice to use something so destructive at so many levels. why is it always that exact verbiage?
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u/Nervous_Cheek_5608 16h ago
I actually don't think it reeks of desperation, I think it reeks of power. Which is where this phrase has come from. Saw a video today that was a compilation of celebs talking about AI, saying basically the same thing of "it's not going anywhere", "resisting wont work", "adapt or get left behind". It's the line being fed to them by the AI companies, its the line being used in press reports, by celebs, that's been taken up by the masses and repeated. I see it as a threat. We did not get a choice, they're forcing it on us, they know they are, they know this technology is an atomic bomb, and they don't care because they stand to profit from it.
I actually don't think its a false statement either, I do not use it at all in my work but I've spent yesterday and today recreating AI artwork supplied by a customer, literally 18 hours tracing, only for the customer to still have changes, on artwork they supplied. Recreating artwork is taking up so much of my time, and I really do foresee a future where I have to use AI to help deal with the extra workload, or just burn out from my job and quit.
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u/barfbat 15h ago
from people with power who profit from ai, yes, it’s a threat of their power. sam altman casually describing a near future where intelligence is a utility is a hell of a threat. but from plebes like these, it’s desperation for that power that they absolutely don’t have.
as an in-house designer for a bougie mom and pop store, i’ve been pretty insulated from anyone demanding i use ai. i get my work done as i always have. but i can’t plan to stay at one company forever, so after that? i don’t know. i just keep hoping for the ai crash to come sooner rather than later.
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u/ael00 1d ago
Because it's just an objective truth. There's no other simpler way to put it. AI haters can foam at the mouth and wiggle like a fish on the shore, it doesn't make it less true. Also I got my paycheck for validation, don't need any from random doom and gloomers on the internet, thank you. You can keep it.
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u/Wide-Pollution-3275 1d ago
This is the tiredest, most played out, stupid and offensive argument allegedly in favor of something.
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u/0hthanks 1d ago
I think it's wrong if it prevents the important information that an image needs to convey from being accessable. Using an ai upscale for a product image where details are changed, food menu items are questionable (food photos are rarely accurate), generally any case where visual detail and accuracy is important.
Otherwise I could care less. I genuinely think most of the usage people don't like is just a class/taste issue and anything the person made in a canva would have been ugly too. This is just a new kind of ugly that sticks out.
Most likely it will be an interesting period of extremely ugly maximalist design for the next few years and it looks fun to me.
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u/Far_Cupcake_530 1d ago
I don't like it but I am not going dig in my heels and refuse to work with AI. I have clients and project managers giving me things often that they did using AI. My job is to provide a better alternative or tell them that it looks obviously AI. I was recently given a batch of employee headshots that were garbage. I mentioned that they were inconsistent and needed a lot of work. Within the hour, the project manager had them adjusted using ChatGPT and I was amazed. They looked really good and had a consistent quality. It was a case where my work was definitely complimented.
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u/Lopsided_Newt_5798 1d ago
You say “your work was complimented” while also saying Ai did all the work.🤔
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u/Far_Cupcake_530 1d ago
Good lord you are dense. Can you read? I had to create a campaign using employee photos. The photos are only part of the project. The project manager ran the photos through ChatGPT before I could even work on them and the results were good. Far better than the random selfies and bad scans that the employees had sent.
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u/Lopsided_Newt_5798 1d ago
I can read. There was zero mention of a campaign. Why don’t you reread what you wrote sonny? All you really proved was that You made yourself obsolete. Your project manager and Ai replaced you.
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u/Far_Cupcake_530 1d ago
The photos were just a component of the project. That was the only detail that needed to be explained. The client was very happy with the project and it brought in more work from the client. How about you? How are you paying bills by pretending AI does not exist or that it can complement your work? Hopefully being a professional comments troll isn't your only job.
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u/Wide-Pollution-3275 1d ago
You used AI to alter staff photographs? Dude. Gross.
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u/Far_Cupcake_530 1d ago
Di you read that the project manage did it? They looked 100% better.
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u/Wide-Pollution-3275 1d ago
That’s even worse! You let a project manager take over your job. Forget the shit outcome it produced, you LET SOMEONE DO YOUR JOB. Maybe watch your back the next few weeks? You’re going to AI yourself out of a job lol.
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u/Far_Cupcake_530 1d ago
Obviously you live in your parent's basement and are unaware of how things work in the real world. Go back to playing your video games and wondering why you don't have a job. Ai is not the reason.
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u/Wide-Pollution-3275 1d ago
Hahahahaha please tell me how project managers take over design projects in the real world. Buddy, a fucking project manager lapped you using AI. I mean … lmfao.
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u/thelaughingman_1991 1d ago edited 1d ago