Do AI-generated images ruin technical posts for anyone else?
Every time I see technical posts with AI-generated feature images, I get extremely turned off. My assumption is that, subconsciously, it makes me think that most of the text is written by an LLM rather than by the actual expertise of the writer.
Absolutely. I have become very “AI-phobic” and any author who unironically uses, or references AI I automatically consider discredited and therefore don’t engage with the content. This is not an irrational reaction or something that can cause regret later; in relation to my personal definition of “quality” and “value”, any affiliation with AI has consistently proven to be a very reliable heuristic for what I should not be wasting my time on. Apart from memes, that is the only major benefit AI is having for me; and it is actually saving me quite a bit of time.
It has the feel of the fractal craze of the late 80's and the goofy websites of the 90's and I have yet to see an AI-generated image that improved the quality of a post on a subject other than AI-generated imagery.
To me it's a signal the author either doesn't care about the overall quality of their post, or doesn't know or care that it's no longer special.
Which may be fine for some kinds of posts but not a good look for anything significant.
AI artwork can definitely be more a distraction than a benefit for an article, especially if it's an image that you would never accept from a human artist.
For me personally, I tend to notice and obsess over an image's details when I see something's off. When AI art catches my attention this way, I end up going over it for a few minutes, which detracts from the time I have to read the actual article. In some cases, I just decide I've spent too much time and close the tab.
The image should be there to support your article, not distract from it. If you're going to use AI art, make sure it's indistinguishable from non-AI art.
No. Let authors have fun. To me they have the same vibe as gifs or badges of the early 2000s internet: just something that people add to their content just for fun. In spirit, this is great.
I don’t think this is specific to technical posts. Using a cheap illustration makes the rest of the content look cheap too.
Not so much ruin, as make me ask questions.
I'll admit, I feel a certain cruelty to using AI-generated imagery alongside writing or information: it's disrespectful to the audience, and it cheapens the work.
Yes, it's a flag that the text of the post itself will be AI slop.
Yes, dystopian soulless vibe of AI images is unpleasant.
Well, personally, not more ruined than before. I find most of the header pictures in online articles (not limited to tech posts) useless anyways...
I saw Postgres post with a picture of elephants from Africa, Docker post with a picture of a whale in ocean. Like, why do you even want to waste your website's bandwidth for that? Nowadays there are too many of them that my brain just automatically ignores them.
ai images are the current version of those word clouds that used to be on so many blog posts.
It's severely off-putting to me, and gives all the technical blogs which do this a real sense of homogeneity.
Any examples? I can't say I've noticed them in particular; I think my brain probably ignores AI, stock photo, and advertisements, equally.
Absolutely. I think genAI is awesome - I love having fun with it. But when I see AI art used as an article header, it makes me cringe. The ugliness of AI art is a very specific kind of ugliness, and it has a particular effect when presented as article or advertising content. The vibe it gives off is something like cheapness, low-class, lack of caring, a sort of boring cutesiness, even a little disrespectful - I can't really give a succinct description.
I'm sure there are plenty of good uses of AI art in this space too (I think I've seen one or two creative AI images that worked well with the content), but the bad examples are overwhelming in number, and they stand out.
Yes. Any technical post with an irrelevant image indicates a lack of real results.
I don't really like it when it's obvious. Many of them have the same style, which gets tiresome.
If you notice that they are AI images, it means that there is something distracting in the first place.
It reminds me of the trend just before, massive hero images for no good reason. This seems to be the next step in the wastage of screen real estate.
Don't care - it's a tool like any other. It can be over-utilized, applied wrongly, or any number of other misuses. Judicious use for illustrative purposes is fine by me.
I don't get upset when someone uses Bootstrap to do their site layout or React to handle interaction, despite the fact that a designer didn't get paid or a programmer wasn't hired to hand-roll the code.
Does this bother you more than stock photos?
I wish Kagi could downrank results that use genAI for text, images, or both.
As long as they are topical and not distracting the hero images are just there to let you know you are on the right tab. I'd prefer one included by any means as it can show a bit of extra effort in curating that image.
I wouldn't want to see images just auto generated in the next.js markdown to html build step from the post's tags (like stock images used to be summoned code-monitor-out-of-focus.jpg) though I'm sure that's going to be a thing.
AI-generated images and AI-generated text both have their "tells." Just because an author chooses to use an AI-generated image doesn't mean they didn't write the post.
When I see an AI generated image, I just think of the digital artist / photographer who missed out on a cut because of this image. That in itself is a pretty big turn off.
I don't assume the entire post is AI generated, but I do have AI-fatigue when it comes to images that stick out like a sore thumb. Just because you can put an image there doesn't mean you should.
When the generative AI boom started, I thought it would be fun to use it to generate my next book cover. But I changed my mind some time ago. Gotta have the humanity in there, and AI just feels cheap, somehow.
I'm tired of all the AI hate here. It ruins HN for me.
I find memes to be more annoying as the meme stock images are far less likely to be relevant and to add any value. AI generated images, on the other hand, are sometimes used to illustrate something useful. Given a choice, I would personally still prefer non AI images though as I appreciate the effort and the "personal touch".
I struggled with this a few months ago and decided to not use any more
gen AI images as a choice [0]. In the end there are many reasons to
dump gen-AI for this specific use of generating post thumbnails.
1) The negative associations of readers mentioned by OP. People do
assume that because some AI is used, all of the content is
suspect by proximity.
2) The quality just ain't that good. Although we deliberately chose to
limit to cartoon/non-photo-real, after a while you notice an
ineffable sameness about all the AI stuff.
3) It takes away the fun of 5 minutes in Photoshop/Gimp
4) Maybe this has changed, or got worse, but we got a creepy sense of
sinister censorship and embedded values in the AI, especially around
race and gender bias. I got really tired of finding Gordon Freeman
lurking in almost every image, whether prompted for or not.
5) Which raises the thought... maybe we are just shit at using AI
image gen? In which case, why not use the tools we are good at
(digital image tools) and have spent 20 years mastering.
The whole AI image episode reminds me of something I saw when working
as a music producer. In the middle of an album, a band took receipt of
a cool new drum machine (actually the tech companies just give
expensive new toys to big bands and names) and it caused problems. It
wasn't that the machine was "bad", it was just so cool and distracting
that it sucked the creative energy out of the band and became the
focus. Eventually the tail started to wag the dog and some members
even started to ask "How are we going to use the MPC in this track?",
as if it had become necessary.
That was the 1990s but I've experienced the same lesson about tech
many times since. It's great to use new stuff. You should jump-in and
know what is all about. But there's a time to walk on past the latest
novelty and hype and not get hung up on it.
[0] https://cybershow.uk/blog/posts/nomoreai
No not really, they definitely increase the risk of slop but not by _that_ much in my experience
Gen AI images always seemed freaky to me as they cause folk to want to generate bizarre and freakish images and spread them. I don't like horror movies for a reason and don't want to see AI generated garbage at all.
I don't judge the book by its cover - I'll give an article a quick skim to decide if I want to read it. if it seems useful, I'll read it more carefully. if it's rubbish, I'll close it.
Have the same. Also I realized that recently I’m subconsciously looking for some weird phrases or sentences that might be AI generated and when I spot it I lose trust in what I’m reading…
There's a YouTube creator I follow who started using AI images for his thumbnails and it's very off-putting. It makes me not want to watch his videos.
I'm not a fan, but if I had to choose between AI images in technical posts and Pinterest in image search results, it's not even close to being the same level of cancer.
No? Why would it matter if it’s an AI image or a stock photo?
Whenever I see an AI image I immediately start scrutinizing the details and looking for all the things wrong with it
Yes, please just choose a good photo. There are plenty that are free for all uses.
AI generated ANYTHING is an instant turnoff for me.
Any time I see obviously AI-generated image or text, I assume that the entire work is equally low-effort and tend to discount it. Doesn't matter if the work is technical in nature or not.
Not saying that's right or wrong, just saying that it is.
Yeah, it's a turn-off; if they're using some cheap low-effort filler crap, who is to say they're not using more in the text?
I'm a little surprised it has become so common; it can't possibly _add_ value.
Keep in mind that website comments section are filled with a special brand of people and aren't actually representative of the population at large.
People who can't stand AI generated pictures and get triggered by the very idea of it are going to rush in here to complain about it, people who are like "meh, it's fine" aren't even gonna bother loading the post.
Yeah same here. It cheapens the post for me (justly or unjustly).
Your concern is valid, as AI-generated feature images can indeed affect the perception of technical posts. The use of AI-generated images can lead to a subconscious assumption that the text is also generated by an AI Language Model (LLM) rather than a human expert. This can undermine the credibility and authority of the writer, potentially diminishing the value of the content.