5 ms·

Anecdotal, but I haven't bought a stock image since Stable Diffusion was released. Edit: with Flux, you can't even tell the difference: https://blackforestlabs

Anecdotal, but I haven't bought a stock image since Stable Diffusion was released. Edit: with Flux, you can't even tell the difference: https://blackforestlabs.ai/ https://blackforestlabs.ai/

Etheryte 2y ago
There are plenty of businesses that think the same way and every time I see an ad with an image that's clearly AI-generated I steer clear of it. It looks cheap, hits the uncanny valley and is often a good sign of lowest effort possible.
- infecto 2y ago
  I am in the same boat, photos are here to stay at least in the short to medium term. It will most definitely change as we get better and better models that become photo realistic. I keep seeing the same themed AI generated images in tech blogs and it is tiresome, its just like how meme images were constantly used in writeups a decade ago.
  - karmasimida 2y ago
    Photo ofc will not be replaced Photo is an image but also a record. The fact something really did exist and captured is probably more valuable than ever. So wedding/event photographer really don’t have to worry about lose their job to AI But in places where photo, as an image just to express abstract idea, without concerning where and when it happened, then that part of value goes to AI already
    - infecto 2y ago
      I don’t think the market agrees here. Sure if you want a super obvious ai generated image of an elephant with wings great. But even for the most generic stock photos, the models are not there yet. People still want to buy photos of an abstract idea.
      - RogerL 2y ago
        It's like a person in the 60s saying "computers will eat everything". Were they in every device at the time, in every home, on your wrist, in your pocket? No, capability wasn't quite there yet, but it would be. Today we get uncanny valley, but I mean today, as in there are images coming out that are far better than uncanny valley, and it is obvious to all that this is (at least very very likely)a surmountable problem in the very near future. I think if you can put what you want the photo to be in words, stock photos are largely (not entire) dead. "give me an elephant under a tree" "make it later in the afternoon". "not that late". "emphasize eyes just a scooch and make it look sad and pensive". "Not quite that much". "Clouds could be a bit whispier" Like you'd talk to a photographer, but with instant updates and no retorts like "great, are you going to pay me to camp out for days waiting for the clouds to move in the sky and then somehow hoping the elephant revisits this tree?" Beats scouring a huge catalog (which, sure, will have AI powered search, but still), and suddenly, it isn't stock anymore, it is very particular to your specific needs. Custom to your needs, faster than getting a stock photo, and so, so much cheaper.
        infecto 2y ago
        Lots of quotes and perhaps you missed my point. Its going to happen but in the near-term models are not good enough to satiate the demand.
      - karmasimida 2y ago
        Someone wants to buy something doesn't mean there is a market there, or that market is functional. There is a difference between out of necessity and out of appreciation. Those are two completely different economies, later IMO, is much less predictable and reliable.
        infecto 2y ago
        Not sure what your point is here? Current gen models don't satiate the need for photos yet.
- cma 2y ago
  I doubt you'll be able to easily tell from the outputs of frontier models for most stock image usages by the time this merger is approved.
- Ensorceled 2y ago
  "I can't afford real images of real people and can't tell these images are shit, but you can rest assured that I didn't take any short cuts on the product!"
  - cloudking 2y ago
    I can afford them, I just don't need to anymore. My use cases for stock photos are websites, marketing, landing pages etc. The SOTA image models are sufficient for my use cases and my customers don't care. Infact, they are happy with the quality of AI generated stock photos and appreciate the fast turnaround and lower cost.
    - SoKamil 2y ago
      Which models are SOTA as of now?
      - cloudking 2y ago
        In terms of realism, Flux is leading the pack currently
        turnsout 2y ago
        Over Midjourney?
        cloudking 2y ago
        Yeah, Midjourney tends to create sci-fi/enhanced looking humans. Flux creates photorealistic.
        turnsout 2y ago
        Interesting! What's the best way to check it out? Via API?
        vunderba 2y ago
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- aloisdg 2y ago
  Until when?
- vintermann 2y ago
  Well I'm grateful for it. Because now corporate stock photos remind me of AI images, and I can properly appreciate that those are signs of low effort junk too.
- vidarh 2y ago
  Survivor bias. In that, you're reacting only to the images you assume are AI. It could be you're really good at spotting them, or they're really bad. But it could also be you spot a tiny proportion, or even misidentify real images as AI. Without knowing the real rate, it tells us nothing about whether picking AI images over stock images is a good tradeoff or not.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    As someone who purchased stock images via our content team there were a ton of really schlocky stock images 10+ years ago and probably longer that I might be inclined to dismiss as AI-generated today.
  - devin 2y ago
    Oh, please. I've generated many, many images. They are not hard to spot.
    - jnwatson 2y ago
      The bad ones are of course not hard to spot. The good ones you'll never notice.
      - devin 2y ago
        Good ones /of what/? Are we talking a human subject? Nature?
    - tokioyoyo 2y ago
      Much respect, but nowadays, unless the person put basically zero effort to make it look realistic, there's no way you can detect whether an image is AI or not while quick scrolling. Obviously, if you look at every image as "let me examine every part of it to see if it's AI or not" mindset, you can still spot them. But anyone who spent a few days playing with the latest gen models, can create images that pass the 90% of sniff tests.
      - devin 2y ago
- aprilthird2021 2y ago
  The major thing that's happened to me, is I start doubting every image I see in an ad. If it looks too generic, too plain. If I have a negative perception of the company, I start to think it's an AI image and further entrench my negative opinion of the company. Maybe it's not rational. Maybe I can't tell the truly good AI images form the cheap slop ones. But that's how I feel, and ultimately a lot of commerce runs off customer feelings. The faker, cheaper, and more soulless we feel a company is being, especially in marketing, the more negative perception we have of them. That's just me though
- CommieBobDole 2y ago
  While I also have a distaste for AI stock photos, their crappiness just highlights the fact that a stock photo already meant "This article does not need a picture to communicate anything, but I know that articles with a picture perform better than articles without, so I will exert the least possible effort and expense to add a picture to this article". It's just that now there's an even cheaper way to do that.
- whywhywhywhy 2y ago
  Stock photos always looked cheap anyway. Both low talent AI use and stock photos have their own look about them and neither is premium.
- karmasimida 2y ago
  I think half of the YouTube thumbnails now are AI generated. Frankly speaking they are getting so good I can hardly tell by first glance
bambax 2y ago
I'm a small-time Shutterstock contributor and my best sellers are all news-style images from actual events. (For example, when announcing a future conference, a publication often likes to illustrate the article with images from the previous iteration). While possible, those are more difficult to reproduce with AI. Shutterstock used to have a program called "Red Carpet" where they endorsed independent photographers to help us get in to events as press. Then like all good things, it was shut down, no explanation given. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- ghaff 2y ago
  An organization whose events I attend regularly has a photographer, who I assume is not on staff but seems to be their regular photographer, and they use a lot of their work to populate upcoming conferences and the like.
probably_wrong 2y ago
The "ee" in "Coffee" is a different shape, the tie of the no-longer-in-a-suit guy changes style midway and the pockets of the woman for the depth example don't match. I'll agree that people who don't care about sewing and calligraphy probably won't notice, but there's a difference between "you can't even tell" and "you can't even tell as long as you don't care too much about the result".
- RogerL 2y ago
  And that is true for the foreseeable future, which unfortunately, if my math is correct, is around 17 hours. In 2 (time units) we'll be doing computer analysis of lens distortion or something to try to suss out the AI. At which point it won't matter for the stock image use case, of course it matters for legal matters and such. And then in 1-2 more units we're going to need public/private key signing implemented in 'cameras of record', because detection will be practically, if not actually impossible. Is that 'unit' days or years? Dunno, but I bet it is a lot closer to the former.
mplewis 2y ago
If you think people can't tell when you've cheaped out on them, you're the sucker.

Anecdotal, but I haven't bought a stock image since Stable Diffusion was released. Edit: with Flux, you can't even tell the difference: https://blackforestlabs.ai/ https://blackforestlabs.ai/

Etheryte 2y ago

There are plenty of businesses that think the same way and every time I see an ad with an image that's clearly AI-generated I steer clear of it. It looks cheap, hits the uncanny valley and is often a good sign of lowest effort possible.

infecto 2y ago
I am in the same boat, photos are here to stay at least in the short to medium term. It will most definitely change as we get better and better models that become photo realistic. I keep seeing the same themed AI generated images in tech blogs and it is tiresome, its just like how meme images were constantly used in writeups a decade ago.
- karmasimida 2y ago
  Photo ofc will not be replaced Photo is an image but also a record. The fact something really did exist and captured is probably more valuable than ever. So wedding/event photographer really don’t have to worry about lose their job to AI But in places where photo, as an image just to express abstract idea, without concerning where and when it happened, then that part of value goes to AI already
  - infecto 2y ago
    I don’t think the market agrees here. Sure if you want a super obvious ai generated image of an elephant with wings great. But even for the most generic stock photos, the models are not there yet. People still want to buy photos of an abstract idea.
    - RogerL 2y ago
      It's like a person in the 60s saying "computers will eat everything". Were they in every device at the time, in every home, on your wrist, in your pocket? No, capability wasn't quite there yet, but it would be. Today we get uncanny valley, but I mean today, as in there are images coming out that are far better than uncanny valley, and it is obvious to all that this is (at least very very likely)a surmountable problem in the very near future. I think if you can put what you want the photo to be in words, stock photos are largely (not entire) dead. "give me an elephant under a tree" "make it later in the afternoon". "not that late". "emphasize eyes just a scooch and make it look sad and pensive". "Not quite that much". "Clouds could be a bit whispier" Like you'd talk to a photographer, but with instant updates and no retorts like "great, are you going to pay me to camp out for days waiting for the clouds to move in the sky and then somehow hoping the elephant revisits this tree?" Beats scouring a huge catalog (which, sure, will have AI powered search, but still), and suddenly, it isn't stock anymore, it is very particular to your specific needs. Custom to your needs, faster than getting a stock photo, and so, so much cheaper.
      - infecto 2y ago
        Lots of quotes and perhaps you missed my point. Its going to happen but in the near-term models are not good enough to satiate the demand.
    - karmasimida 2y ago
      Someone wants to buy something doesn't mean there is a market there, or that market is functional. There is a difference between out of necessity and out of appreciation. Those are two completely different economies, later IMO, is much less predictable and reliable.
      - infecto 2y ago
        Not sure what your point is here? Current gen models don't satiate the need for photos yet.
cma 2y ago
I doubt you'll be able to easily tell from the outputs of frontier models for most stock image usages by the time this merger is approved.
Ensorceled 2y ago
"I can't afford real images of real people and can't tell these images are shit, but you can rest assured that I didn't take any short cuts on the product!"
- cloudking 2y ago
  I can afford them, I just don't need to anymore. My use cases for stock photos are websites, marketing, landing pages etc. The SOTA image models are sufficient for my use cases and my customers don't care. Infact, they are happy with the quality of AI generated stock photos and appreciate the fast turnaround and lower cost.
  - SoKamil 2y ago
    Which models are SOTA as of now?
    - cloudking 2y ago
      In terms of realism, Flux is leading the pack currently
      - turnsout 2y ago
        Over Midjourney?
        cloudking 2y ago
        Yeah, Midjourney tends to create sci-fi/enhanced looking humans. Flux creates photorealistic.
        turnsout 2y ago
        Interesting! What's the best way to check it out? Via API?
      - vunderba 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
aloisdg 2y ago
Until when?
vintermann 2y ago
Well I'm grateful for it. Because now corporate stock photos remind me of AI images, and I can properly appreciate that those are signs of low effort junk too.
vidarh 2y ago
Survivor bias. In that, you're reacting only to the images you assume are AI. It could be you're really good at spotting them, or they're really bad. But it could also be you spot a tiny proportion, or even misidentify real images as AI. Without knowing the real rate, it tells us nothing about whether picking AI images over stock images is a good tradeoff or not.
- ghaff 2y ago
  As someone who purchased stock images via our content team there were a ton of really schlocky stock images 10+ years ago and probably longer that I might be inclined to dismiss as AI-generated today.
- devin 2y ago
  Oh, please. I've generated many, many images. They are not hard to spot.
  - jnwatson 2y ago
    The bad ones are of course not hard to spot. The good ones you'll never notice.
    - devin 2y ago
      Good ones /of what/? Are we talking a human subject? Nature?
  - tokioyoyo 2y ago
    Much respect, but nowadays, unless the person put basically zero effort to make it look realistic, there's no way you can detect whether an image is AI or not while quick scrolling. Obviously, if you look at every image as "let me examine every part of it to see if it's AI or not" mindset, you can still spot them. But anyone who spent a few days playing with the latest gen models, can create images that pass the 90% of sniff tests.
    - devin 2y ago
aprilthird2021 2y ago
The major thing that's happened to me, is I start doubting every image I see in an ad. If it looks too generic, too plain. If I have a negative perception of the company, I start to think it's an AI image and further entrench my negative opinion of the company. Maybe it's not rational. Maybe I can't tell the truly good AI images form the cheap slop ones. But that's how I feel, and ultimately a lot of commerce runs off customer feelings. The faker, cheaper, and more soulless we feel a company is being, especially in marketing, the more negative perception we have of them. That's just me though
CommieBobDole 2y ago
While I also have a distaste for AI stock photos, their crappiness just highlights the fact that a stock photo already meant "This article does not need a picture to communicate anything, but I know that articles with a picture perform better than articles without, so I will exert the least possible effort and expense to add a picture to this article". It's just that now there's an even cheaper way to do that.
whywhywhywhy 2y ago
Stock photos always looked cheap anyway. Both low talent AI use and stock photos have their own look about them and neither is premium.
karmasimida 2y ago
I think half of the YouTube thumbnails now are AI generated. Frankly speaking they are getting so good I can hardly tell by first glance

bambax 2y ago

I'm a small-time Shutterstock contributor and my best sellers are all news-style images from actual events. (For example, when announcing a future conference, a publication often likes to illustrate the article with images from the previous iteration). While possible, those are more difficult to reproduce with AI. Shutterstock used to have a program called "Red Carpet" where they endorsed independent photographers to help us get in to events as press. Then like all good things, it was shut down, no explanation given. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ghaff 2y ago
An organization whose events I attend regularly has a photographer, who I assume is not on staff but seems to be their regular photographer, and they use a lot of their work to populate upcoming conferences and the like.

probably_wrong 2y ago

The "ee" in "Coffee" is a different shape, the tie of the no-longer-in-a-suit guy changes style midway and the pockets of the woman for the depth example don't match. I'll agree that people who don't care about sewing and calligraphy probably won't notice, but there's a difference between "you can't even tell" and "you can't even tell as long as you don't care too much about the result".

RogerL 2y ago
And that is true for the foreseeable future, which unfortunately, if my math is correct, is around 17 hours. In 2 (time units) we'll be doing computer analysis of lens distortion or something to try to suss out the AI. At which point it won't matter for the stock image use case, of course it matters for legal matters and such. And then in 1-2 more units we're going to need public/private key signing implemented in 'cameras of record', because detection will be practically, if not actually impossible. Is that 'unit' days or years? Dunno, but I bet it is a lot closer to the former.

mplewis 2y ago

If you think people can't tell when you've cheaped out on them, you're the sucker.