AI is ruining haunted houses

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.

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.)

1. You can no longer judge what an event will be like by its materials

2. Everything starts to look the same, and you feel like you've seen it all before

Maybe these effect will attenuate as people start getting more adept with AI. But I think we're in for a least a few years of this.

> 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...

With code, that doesn't matter so much. We are using it to achieve real-world objectives. The creativity of the programmer is rarely at issue -- from the user's perspective, a programmer is more akin to a plumber or an electrician. What matters is the result, not the creativity of the code.

But it does matter when part of the point of an in-person event is to see and appreciate someone else's creativity and skill. There is a real difference when that creativity and artisanship is replaced with AI output.

If I want to see AI art, I can prompt a model all day long and see whatever art I want, customized to my preferences. It's freely available and easy to get, so it doesn't have a lot of value.

What do you think "virtue signaling" means?

Did you read the article and understand the author's dislike, or did you just come here to whine that if I think AI is a bad choice in one context, I can never complain about it in any context? I assume you're aware that is a trivially silly and childish position.

I see this thread as a manifesting of fear that AI will inevitably own software engineering. We'll hang on to some of the peripheral areas for a few years but it's over. Seeing reminders of this in the AI images generated for decoration must be hard for some.

And if the work is an ad, a flyer, etc., the quality of the output used to signal something about the event or product. Not so much any more.

There is nothing to be done about it, but it's still a real tradeoff.

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.

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?

I am very sorry but these are not related at all.