> Participants gave poorer ratings to images they thought were created by artificial intelligence. > “It seems that where the image actually comes from doesn't

> Participants gave poorer ratings to images they thought were created by artificial intelligence. > “It seems that where the image actually comes from doesn't matter, rather what people believe is what governs their feelings. The objective quality doesn’t seem to be that important,” says Grassini. > “When participants thought that an image was made by AI, it was regarded as uglier and of lower emotional value, regardless of where it came from. When the image was assumed to be made by a human, it was considered more beautiful and as having a higher emotional value.” Later: > [...] “AI products will become more and more similar to things made by humans. What we're seeing now is that it doesn't really matter whether art is human or not, but whether it's believed to be made by a human or not," he says. > “Customer service created by AI might be perceived as worse, not because it’s objectively worse, but just because it's degraded as something created by AI.” Here are two examples where the researcher contrasts the "objective" merits of a thing with the subjective matter of an individual's beliefs about where that thing came from. But that is a rather loaded framing. Can we rule out the conclusion that artworks created by human artists are objectively better? I'd rate my enjoyment of holding a 5000 year old Ancient Egyptian relic much lower if I am told that it is a modern reproduction. Is it that I have a subjective bias towards an authentic original, regardless of the objective features of the relic? Or is it that the relic's provenance is itself an objective attribute of the relic, and if I am lied to about that attribute, it will affect my opinion? This reminds me of a study on disgust. As I remember it, subjects in the study were shown a dead cockroach and told it had been totally disinfected and sanitized in some way. The roach was dipped in a glass of water, then the subjects were asked to take a sip. Obviously, many participants were grossed out and didn't drink the water. The researchers' conclusions went something like this: "the disgust response is an adaptation which serves to limit our exposure to dangerous pathogens and such. This cockroach has no pathogens on it. Therefore, our disgust reactions (and the subjects who did not drink the water) are irrational". An excellent reply was published, which went something like this: "Dead cockroaches are gross. Drinking dead cockroach water is gross. Therefore not drinking the water was rational".