I genuinely feel sadness for all my friends that studied graphic design for a career. Im not dunking on their choice. I just genuinely feel bad that this is happening.
Don't feel too bad - this garbage is temporary. If anything it will make people bored of ai and then there will be a big demand for human made designs again. Its only a matter of time before the pendulum swings.
Not gonna happen, and I say that as an artist. Yes, there will be people who specifically seek out human made art, and artists (and their jobs) as a whole won’t disappear, but you vastly overestimate how much people care, and aren’t accounting for the fact that AI can make art that doesn’t actually look as obnoxious as this.
I tested it myself almost 2 years ago and generated some art (paintings, to be fair, which can look good more easily) that legitimately would’ve fooled me.
I was just on Etsy the other day, looking at watercolor wedding invitations, custom maps, etc. Most of the listings were selling AI art, they had thousands of sales (usually 5x-10x more than artists doing the same thing with real art), and all the reviews were praising how good the artist was and how “the watercolors” looked so incredible “and for such an affordable price!!”.
The illustrations were obviously AI to me, because I know what it looks like, but overall they looked pretty nice, and that’s all the average person cares about. They want something they like for the price they can afford, doesn’t matter if it comes from a real artist, a machine, or a sweat shop in China.
Right on the money. This is what it looks like when someone isn’t that great at what they’re doing. When someone knows how to use ai and other tools, you won’t always know it’s been Ai’ed
On a smaller scale: how digital photography drove stock photo prices through the floor. You're absolutely correct and slop like this is what people think all AI generated images look like.
Those specific commercial applications of graphic design or art, sure. But for now at least it’s still not reliable for lots of instructional design purposes, especially things like medical diagrams, etc., as someone working in that space. I use AI but not to generate the graphics, it takes more time and effort than it’s worth. It still makes mistakes when I just ask it to verify medical data I need to accurately design the graphic, much less making the graphic itself.
Unless artists start working for free. AI isn't going no where. Small businesses ran by one person isn't going to hire a designer for their stuff when AI can do it.
And I don't blame them. Having a small business is hard.
We're out there. I love a sketchy, poorly signed, food truck as much as the next guy. The AI menus have got to stop though. Hell, at least take a photo of your food for the AI to use you lazy fucks. Have some pride in your own product.
I've literally seen a local business get more customers recently bc they did an ad where they wrote the business info down on a sheet of notebook paper and people loved it bc it wasn't AI.
I do blame them. We have so much information about what AI is doing to the environment. To still use it makes them culpable, and they deserve whatever failure comes their way.
Basically nothing? Actual environmentalists don't really talk about AI, since it isn't relevant enough. Hell, some of them are hoping it helps produce green tech. AI doesn't use enough water or energy to be an environmental problem, what it is is that corrupt centers built without regulations can be a nuisance for residential areas if they are built too close. But that's a totally different issue.
You're wrong. Period, end of story, incorrect. Data centers use mass amounts of drinkable water, and AI is consistently trained on the stolen work of artists, performers, and writers.
Its okay. Two years from now when you realize you were falling for moral panic clickbait and try to pretend you never had the stances you do, hopefully you remember this.
When I walk by the food truck with this kind of garbage to the one next to it with a chalk board, maybe they'll get the message. Anybody putting this kind of slop up won't get a dime from me, I assume they care just as much about the quality of their food, ie not at all. Might as well put rats on your food.
The cost of graphic design is in the toilet, you can get an amazing piece of work off of Fiverr for next to nothing. So I don't feel bad for small business owners. Also when they do this, they are risking alienating a part of their audience and taking that risk is completely unnecessary.
Another reason people spend time and money on graphic design is to entice customers. Something like this is not only ugly, but it is way too busy to communicate what they want it to.
No honestly. People are chill with you just messing around on your phone or on canva (which does have ai bs on it but it’s more effort than asking for a prompt. You can upload your own pics and stuff).
Especially since it only looks like this since it is still new technology. In a few years AI will be able to make normal looking flyers. Technically it already can, but I mean, without you needing to know how to use it.
Well, having a small business with little effort put into it is going to be even harder. Legibility is one of the basics and these ads can be written by hand.
Creativity also involves processing client orders and problems, differentiating product to remain competitive, and adapting to new trends. It's not optional.
AI is not a substitute but a tool, the ones behind the prompts for the ads are putting no effort to make their own business distinct, and it's blatantly obvious.
Many didn't hire an artist before either though. There are tons of posters and flyers out there which are clearly just the owner fucking around in Photoshop (or probably a free tool) for an afternoon. Sure, now we call them "charming" and "at least they tried", but a few years ago everyone was ridiculing them and complaining about how bad they looked.
I'm not a graphic designer by trade, but I do okay and I know my way around Creative Cloud well enough. For years I wanted to create my own gig doing signs and advertisements and such, and when AI came out I thought, "well, there goes that idea, I can't compete with AI".
But seeing the reaction to AI generated signage (which I hate as much as Comic Sans), I might have a better shot at that than I thought! 😂
I have walked into a restaurant hungry, and then left without buying anything because the AI food looked so unappetizing. I hope. business owners know that this does affect their bottom line.
The fact that I see this for 95% of the food trucks I go to anymore illustrates the reality. Many of these owners would rather die than spend another cent on graphic design.
Most of them weren't spending before now either. People forget how many small businesses either had stolen art, hand painted stuff clearly made by someone who never painted before, or random clipart.
AI can already produce much better graphics than these. These are the bottom of the barrel slop flyers which are already being widely accepted by people.
We are setting the bar extremely low for when people actually learn to use AI to make better graphics that it will be used everywhere. Hell, there are already people who know how to make better graphics with AI who are flying under the radar now.
Stomemasons can make cool ass buildings but we make shit instead because it is way cheaper at the time and the art and soul dont factor into budgets well.
There's a difference between tool automation and your literal agency as a creative human being automated away.
When the world lets the machine make all of the decisions, the demand for humans at all in the creative space is gone and we are nothing but laborers for the machine. We are literally flipping roles here.
If we're being real, this kind of work has not been done in the US, or by actual trained designers, in well over a decade.
This would have been a Fiverr or Upwork task posted for $10, with an estimated time of 4 hours, with "free revisions until satisfied" done by someone who doesn't know design either.
If we are being real, your concession to this bullshit further desensitizes you to all creative work being taken over by AI. I'd rather some child get paid 10 bucks to make a dumb flyer as they hone their skills.
It isn't supporting human skill though. It's allowing some jagoff with an idea for a grift who was able to score a bad loan continue to pinch pennies before their food truck inevitably gets impounded.
If we're being really real your comment is masturbatory bullshit: you said child for the heartstrings but it was overwhelmingly some adult in another country getting taken advantage of with the lionshare of the money getting skimmed by Fiverr and Upwork.
If anything your need to inflate things with the absolute bottom of the barrel form of moralizing ("won't someone think of the kids?????") is why no one takes anti-AI sentiment seriously... other than similar mentally hobbled people equally as ineffectual as you.
I feel bad for any business that chooses to nuke their own brand just to save a couple bucks on an artist to do their branding and marketing materials. They're just making their entire business look shitty and half-assed with this AI slop.
I’m a trained traditional media artist who spent the last 10 years in graphic design and digital illustration.
Thank god I have my traditional media to fall back on. Crazy to say that but I at least have a plan B and people seem to be wanting more small affordable handmade works right now.
Why? The smart ones have added ai to their workflow and do 100x the work in less time. The inflexible ones like people on this thread, life was always going to pass them by.
That's not how this works AI work is hardly ready for print. The only time I use ai for graphic design is to fix the shit AI makes... This whole thing is a scam.
I'm nobody and I've sold what is approaching 7 figures of AI designed t-shirts in the last year. That doesn't even touch what I'm doing with code.
You trying to sell this lie on reddit really does nothing to benefit you but it does cause harm to anyone that happens to buy this kind of nonsense. It's a useless endeavor and is extremely weird. Actual billions of dollars are being generated with AI from people that formerly employed thousands of contractors and you're on here doing the fingers in your ears meme. Why?
It's because you have zero clue about any of the things you choose to talk about. If you did you would see what is going on in hundreds of industries large and small and the tens of thousands of people taking advantage of it.
The sad part is that I could spend an hour proving to you that you are clueless and your reddit ego would make you reply
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u/Jsdrosera 22d ago
I genuinely feel sadness for all my friends that studied graphic design for a career. Im not dunking on their choice. I just genuinely feel bad that this is happening.