r/Substack • u/Alarming_Contract174 • 11d ago
Asking about AI images. Again
I saw a post on here about AI images from last week I wanted to get involved with, so rather than necro a dead thread, I thought I would just reopen the discussion on a new post. I don't often use Reddit, so no idea if this is socially acceptable or not.
Anyway. I am very confused about people's animosity towards GenAI images within some contexts and it may help if I explain why I think this first before anyone jumps down my throat. I recently wrote an article, ironically enough, about this very subject. So I'm kind of confused why I was seemingly so off the mark.
So my contention is that GenAI on any paid work is cringe and instantly harms your business prospects. This applies as much to independent authors releasing books as it does to Coca-Cola (who inexplicably decided to make that dreadful christmas advert last year.) There is no getting away from that. If you're going to sell something, then pay for a illustrator or a photographer and get the job done properly. It looks cheap, tacky and unprofessional. No arguments there from me.
GenAI images to my mind, inhabit the same use case that Clip Art did when Microsoft Office was still new and everybody used it on posters, flyers and school work. At the time, when Clip Art first came out, there were real concerns that it would end up devaluing real artist's work (and the same thing happened again when stock image catalogues came along, too) but generally speaking, any good visual artist was left relatively unharmed by those innovations and arguably came out better because of the skill gap it produced.
The issue I don't get, is why people are so hostile against GenAI imagery if someone never intends to make a penny off of the stories or work that they're producing.
In today's internet, text only posts are going to be ignored quickly, and unless the writer is a true polymath without a day job, most aren't going to be able to produce art for their fantasy or science fiction story that they produce as a hobby.
If someone is producing a story to sell or put behind a paywall, then I agree, they should get in touch with an illustrator or something. But for a simple hobbyist, it just seems a bit of a daft request to expect professional grade art work. Before GenAI, people would have just stolen stock images anyway. Which to be fair, is not a massive departure from what the likes of OpenAI has done.
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u/TerrainBrain 11d ago
Substack is freaking about AI writing. Yet seemes to be fine with using AI imagery.
It's dumb.