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Yes, I think this is exactly right. The labelling of a thing as “AI Generated” or “AI Assisted” makes the viewer perceive it as worse in quality. And they reall

Yes, I think this is exactly right. The labelling of a thing as “AI Generated” or “AI Assisted” makes the viewer perceive it as worse in quality. And they really do think it’s worse. It’s similar to a well known finding about price: people value things that are more expensive more, and tend to think they are of higher quality. You can give people the same thing for a high price or for free and they’ll say the high priced one is amazing the free one is lacklustre. It’s like an optical illusion driven by labelling.

hattmall 7d ago
Yeah, but the issue is we are getting constantly exposed to a barrage of really low quality obvious AI generated content. Except a lot of people seem to not know that it's AI and interact with like it's real. The people posting it are being reward by monetization platforms. Low quality baiting content was a problem before but the barrier to entry has been significantly reduced and the.amount of content is growing quickly.
paulhebert 7d ago
By many people’s criteria it automatically is worse, because part of what they value in art is thinking about the artist and their intentions behind their creation. Similarly people may view an IKEA book stand as worse quality than one built by hand even if the hand built one has flaws. Or they might view a microwaved meal as worse than that created by a home chef. People value the human intention and care that goes into creations. Without that it’s worse even if the output is fundamentally the same. A drawing by my young niece may not have the same finesse as an AI generated one but I like it a whole lot more
- Chance-Device 7d ago
  > By many people’s criteria it automatically is worse, because part of what they value in art is thinking about the artist and their intentions behind their creation That’s a bit separate to what I’m talking about, but I don’t think there are many of these people. I think this whole thing is about AI anxiety coupled with American social norms, and as soon as one of those things changes the artists are going to be left out in the cold again.
  - paulhebert 7d ago
    I think you’d be surprised by how many people feel that way but it’s hard to say for sure. What did you think about my other examples? (The bookshelf and the microwaved meal)
    - Chance-Device 7d ago
      There’s the idea of preferences and revealed preferences. People say their preferences and then their actions show what they really prefer. I suspect AI generated content, if curated by a human, would end up being people’s revealed preferences. There are a lot of bad artists and writers and whatever out there, AI would handily beat them. I think at least for your niece’s drawings example, you’d probably prefer AI art if you had to choose one or the other until the end of time, not just one or two drawings that go on your refrigerator.
      - paulhebert 7d ago
        Thats part of the issue. People prefer human made art and then people feel tricked when they find out it’s AI art. I would definitely choose my niece’s drawing for all time. Do you have young family members? That seems like a bizarre perspective to me.
        Chance-Device 7d ago
        I do! And goodness no, nice and all as they might be I’d go mad if they were the only art I could ever consume ever again!
        card_zero 7d ago
        But of course with the gen-AI stuff you are getting put in touch with the real ideas of real artists (e.g. Miyazaki), it's just that they've been anonymized and put through a blender.
        paulhebert 7d ago
- glenstein 7d ago
  >By many people’s criteria it automatically is worse, because part of what they value in art is thinking about the artist and their intentions behind their creation. I think that's true enough for what it is but, as the other commenter also noted, a bit of a different topic here. The Monet example shows that people work backward from AI to direct conclusions about the quality of the work itself, which isn't the same as agreeing a work is by all appearances equivalent to Monet but lacking in underlying deliberation. One can inform the other to be sure but that conversation exists in parallel with another conversation that's a straight one-shot assessment of quality.
- ereiamjh 5d ago
  I think a thought pattern that happens here is "Would you prefer a chair mass produced in a factory, or would you prefer a hand-crafted chair?" Where by analogy, AI is the factory chair, human-designed is the hand-crafted chair. And your mind imagines the most beautiful hardwood chair, with perfectly mitred joints, smoothed and waxed, your ideal handmade chair, made by a master craftsman. Not the wobbly ugly piece of crap I would make if I tried to make a chair. Ikea's cheapest factory-produced chair is a nicer chair than the one I would make by hand.
  - paulhebert 5d ago
    I’m not a very good woodworker but I enjoy it. I’ve got a few wobbly pieces of furniture around the house. I love them! I’ve also got a bookcase my dad made back when he was in shop class. And my mom has been using a cutting board I made her for the last 20 years. I’m also a bad potter but love drinking out of the mugs I made and eating out of the bowls I made. I love the artwork my friends and family have made even if they’re not super talented. It’s up on the walls. IKEA stuff is fine. I have some, but I don’t feel much emotion around it. It gets the job done and not much more. (Though in my experience it’s not very sturdy and falls apart faster than handmade stuff.) I would also add that back in the day there were a lot more craftsmen making high quality furniture for purchase. A lot of them have been driven out of business and so now buying that type of thing is much more expensive.

hattmall 7d ago

Yeah, but the issue is we are getting constantly exposed to a barrage of really low quality obvious AI generated content. Except a lot of people seem to not know that it's AI and interact with like it's real. The people posting it are being reward by monetization platforms. Low quality baiting content was a problem before but the barrier to entry has been significantly reduced and the.amount of content is growing quickly.

paulhebert 7d ago

By many people’s criteria it automatically is worse, because part of what they value in art is thinking about the artist and their intentions behind their creation. Similarly people may view an IKEA book stand as worse quality than one built by hand even if the hand built one has flaws. Or they might view a microwaved meal as worse than that created by a home chef. People value the human intention and care that goes into creations. Without that it’s worse even if the output is fundamentally the same. A drawing by my young niece may not have the same finesse as an AI generated one but I like it a whole lot more

Chance-Device 7d ago
> By many people’s criteria it automatically is worse, because part of what they value in art is thinking about the artist and their intentions behind their creation That’s a bit separate to what I’m talking about, but I don’t think there are many of these people. I think this whole thing is about AI anxiety coupled with American social norms, and as soon as one of those things changes the artists are going to be left out in the cold again.
- paulhebert 7d ago
  I think you’d be surprised by how many people feel that way but it’s hard to say for sure. What did you think about my other examples? (The bookshelf and the microwaved meal)
  - Chance-Device 7d ago
    There’s the idea of preferences and revealed preferences. People say their preferences and then their actions show what they really prefer. I suspect AI generated content, if curated by a human, would end up being people’s revealed preferences. There are a lot of bad artists and writers and whatever out there, AI would handily beat them. I think at least for your niece’s drawings example, you’d probably prefer AI art if you had to choose one or the other until the end of time, not just one or two drawings that go on your refrigerator.
    - paulhebert 7d ago
      Thats part of the issue. People prefer human made art and then people feel tricked when they find out it’s AI art. I would definitely choose my niece’s drawing for all time. Do you have young family members? That seems like a bizarre perspective to me.
      - Chance-Device 7d ago
        I do! And goodness no, nice and all as they might be I’d go mad if they were the only art I could ever consume ever again!
        card_zero 7d ago
        But of course with the gen-AI stuff you are getting put in touch with the real ideas of real artists (e.g. Miyazaki), it's just that they've been anonymized and put through a blender.
        paulhebert 7d ago
glenstein 7d ago
>By many people’s criteria it automatically is worse, because part of what they value in art is thinking about the artist and their intentions behind their creation. I think that's true enough for what it is but, as the other commenter also noted, a bit of a different topic here. The Monet example shows that people work backward from AI to direct conclusions about the quality of the work itself, which isn't the same as agreeing a work is by all appearances equivalent to Monet but lacking in underlying deliberation. One can inform the other to be sure but that conversation exists in parallel with another conversation that's a straight one-shot assessment of quality.
ereiamjh 5d ago
I think a thought pattern that happens here is "Would you prefer a chair mass produced in a factory, or would you prefer a hand-crafted chair?" Where by analogy, AI is the factory chair, human-designed is the hand-crafted chair. And your mind imagines the most beautiful hardwood chair, with perfectly mitred joints, smoothed and waxed, your ideal handmade chair, made by a master craftsman. Not the wobbly ugly piece of crap I would make if I tried to make a chair. Ikea's cheapest factory-produced chair is a nicer chair than the one I would make by hand.
- paulhebert 5d ago
  I’m not a very good woodworker but I enjoy it. I’ve got a few wobbly pieces of furniture around the house. I love them! I’ve also got a bookcase my dad made back when he was in shop class. And my mom has been using a cutting board I made her for the last 20 years. I’m also a bad potter but love drinking out of the mugs I made and eating out of the bowls I made. I love the artwork my friends and family have made even if they’re not super talented. It’s up on the walls. IKEA stuff is fine. I have some, but I don’t feel much emotion around it. It gets the job done and not much more. (Though in my experience it’s not very sturdy and falls apart faster than handmade stuff.) I would also add that back in the day there were a lot more craftsmen making high quality furniture for purchase. A lot of them have been driven out of business and so now buying that type of thing is much more expensive.