AI Rant

[Boudica]

Get Topaz Gigapixel and upscale his BS AI image into something usable...its more AI but it actually recreates things when upscaling...crisps up text and even some cartoon style artwork better than the original

Topaz is an incredibly useful tool for upscaling a crappy image.
I end up using it quite a lot for senior banners. We do pole banners for some smaller communities near by and most of the pictures they send us are really low res. Each year the software is better than the last and it really does a remarkable job enhancing the photos.

 

[VizualVoice]

I'd pass on those too. no way

you're saying you don't wanna get involved with "Sausage Fest"?

 

[WildWestDesigns]

It's decent for brain-storming ideas.

There is a interesting event that has come out of this, and it typically happens with high levels of abstraction that are used by people that only know said abstraction, but it can happen with more experienced people as well and that is what's called the '"AI" Pause'. Users are waiting for the "AI" to deliver it's result's even if they know what they need to do (this usually happens in programs that have a live feed into the chatbot that produces automatic feedback).

Typically when one starts to "lean" on the abstraction (even at the brain storming phase), it eventually becomes to where the abstraction is doing most of the heavy lifting down the line. It has happened with tech (even with simple tech at that) in general and we have lost a lot of knowledge/ability of being able to do things without it, so when things go south (which the inevitably do, and even within the so called "AI" sphere with at the very least uptime), it's no bueno for those that only know the abstraction.

All sold in the name of efficiency. Unfortunately, quantity != quality.

 

[pro-UP]

There is a interesting event that has come out of this, and it typically happens with high levels of abstraction that are used by people that only know said abstraction, but it can happen with more experienced people as well and that is what's called the '"AI" Pause'. Users are waiting for the "AI" to deliver it's result's even if they know what they need to do (this usually happens in programs that have a live feed into the chatbot that produces automatic feedback).

Typically when one starts to "lean" on the abstraction (even at the brain storming phase), it eventually becomes to where the abstraction is doing most of the heavy lifting down the line. It has happened with tech (even with simple tech at that) in general and we have lost a lot of knowledge/ability of being able to do things without it, so when things go south (which the inevitably do, and even within the so called "AI" sphere with at the very least uptime), it's no bueno for those that only know the abstraction.

All sold in the name of efficiency. Unfortunately, quantity != quality.

I can't help but wonder what the outcry will be when more ai options stop being available, like Sora. They are all subsidized and most people prefer freemium or the cheapest possible option. The ai companies are left with having to focus only on enterprise level but I don't think any of them (at this time) are reliable enough for an enterprise client base. I am betting the only ones standing will be google, microsoft, and whatever apple has been working on (trying to create a shortcut system for better run power with less power required - just read about this, but don't recall the article (edit - here's a similar one - article). But, here's a funny video as a consolation prize, lol -

 

[Boudica]

you're saying you don't wanna get involved with "Sausage Fest"?

Not with those creepy dudes. The Head to body proportion is off. I don't want to body shame, but it's not attractive, and I don't think they were going for subtle Picasso.

 

[Bobby H]

AI and particularly the tech executives promoting have created a growing backlash from the general public. The backlash is due to multiple topics associated with AI. A few years ago the public was generally excited about AI. That excitement has turned into suspicion or even dread.

People are worried AI tech will eliminate many millions of jobs. The AI promoters always respond with BS such as "the displaced workers will be free to find new jobs" (without being specific on what jobs those will be) or "they'll have all kinds of freedom by not having to work." Yeah, whatever. Elon Musk likes floating the pie in the sky Utopian idea of "universal basic income" as a remedy for the job loss potential. UBI ain't happening. The core motivation of developing this AI tech is creating vast amounts of profit by eliminating human-held jobs. Simple as that.

There is a great deal of concern over what governments will do with AI-based technology.

Serious hazards exist for letting AI replace human software developers. ChatGPT or Claude may be able to write code in any number of programming languages. But the generated code is often a mess. A software bug or security hole might be really hard to fix if the code is a bunch of gobbledygook. Some firms that were quick to fire human developers had to later re-hire some of those former employees or find new ones if they recklessly burned bridges with the firing process.

Of course, anyone who works in a creative field ought to be concerned. AI bots can generate a fiction novel in mere seconds, but the quality of the writing and overall work will be strangely off. AI bots can quickly generate creative images, but it's not hard at all to spot sloppy flaws.

Here's the problem about visual AI slop and why it's dangerous to the jobs of professional graphic designers, illustrators, etc.: the AI slop looks "good enough" to an untrained eye. People who have no creative talent often don't understand the difference between good quality and bad quality graphic design. They don't notice the details. They overlook the glitches and hallucinations. They might feel the odd uncanny valley vibe wafting off artificial images of people or other familiar things. But they're still prone to accept the generated results as good enough to get by -especially if they think AI will save them a good bit of money.

It sounds like some business people in the tech media are cheering on the possible job losses in creative fields. Adobe's stock price has been getting hammered lately via reactions to AI tech developments. These people don't understand what goes on in a work flow of a creative company, such as sign company. AI falls apart in many specific areas. Those facts are getting lost in all the AI hype.

 

[Boudica]

AI and particularly the tech executives promoting have created a growing backlash from the general public. The backlash is due to multiple topics associated with AI. A few years ago the public was generally excited about AI. That excitement has turned into suspicion or even dread.

People are worried AI tech will eliminate many millions of jobs. The AI promoters always respond with BS such as "the displaced workers will be free to find new jobs" (without being specific on what jobs those will be) or "they'll have all kinds of freedom by not having to work." Yeah, whatever. Elon Musk likes floating the pie in the sky Utopian idea of "universal basic income" as a remedy for the job loss potential. UBI ain't happening. The core motivation of developing this AI tech is creating vast amounts of profit by eliminating human-held jobs. Simple as that.

There is a great deal of concern over what governments will do with AI-based technology.

Serious hazards exist for letting AI replace human software developers. ChatGPT or Claude may be able to write code in any number of programming languages. But the generated code is often a mess. A software bug or security hole might be really hard to fix if the code is a bunch of gobbledygook. Some firms that were quick to fire human developers had to later re-hire some of those former employees or find new ones if they recklessly burned bridges with the firing process.

Of course, anyone who works in a creative field ought to be concerned. AI bots can generate a fiction novel in mere seconds, but the quality of the writing and overall work will be strangely off. AI bots can quickly generate creative images, but it's not hard at all to spot sloppy flaws.

Here's the problem about visual AI slop and why it's dangerous to the jobs of professional graphic designers, illustrators, etc.: the AI slop looks "good enough" to an untrained eye. People who have no creative talent often don't understand the difference between good quality and bad quality graphic design. They don't notice the details. They overlook the glitches and hallucinations. They might feel the odd uncanny valley vibe wafting off artificial images of people or other familiar things. But they're still prone to accept the generated results as good enough to get by -especially if they think AI will save them a good bit of money.

It sounds like some business people in the tech media are cheering on the possible job losses in creative fields. Adobe's stock price has been getting hammered lately via reactions to AI tech developments. These people don't understand what goes on in a work flow of a creative company, such as sign company. AI falls apart in many specific areas. Those facts are getting lost in all the AI hype.

Seriously, how is the book coming? I feel like I've mentioned before... You need to write a book.
Today it's about "ai" and the creative industry pertaining to sign makers.
I'm joking and not trying to be mean btw

 

[ProSignTN]

I am concerned. Not so much for us designers, but society as a whole. Realize AI is in its infancy, like it's 5 or 6 years old. Just wait til it is a teenager. you know all teenagers are smarter than the old people. Can we teach and train it to do what we want? Or will it pull a HAL 9000?

 

[Think713]

I have been in the sign industry since the mid 80s and owned my own business since 2001.
I am loosing my mind over the artwork clients are now presenting that they want on there signs & vehicles!!!
Basically they are asking ChatGPT or some other AI rendering programme to create a logo which spits out something that they think they want.
Everytime it is a low quality image that has no editable capabilities or is useable in the space they have.
How is everyone dealing with this issue as I am at my end trying to educate people?
Then what makes it worse is they resend exactly the same image over in a pdf and think this is now editable!!!

SC

We use an upscaler to make these kinds of things printable. If these business want cheap AI slop for their branding, thats on them. Is what it is. I don't like it either. I'm an artist, graphic designer, etc. So morally it frustrates the hell out of me. I don't get design business as a designer because "I'm too expensive" but even this industry before AI devalued designers. You can go to a sign shop and get a logo for dirt cheap, but I wont even budge to look at one for less than $350. So I get the frustration. BUT congress just passed a law that you cannot copyright any AI generated artwork as your own. So these people cannot own these logos. Maybe tell them that.

 

[Bobby H]

The average customer doesn't even understand concepts like copyright law or registered trademarks -that is until they get sued for infringement for what they put in their logo. Just this week we had a customer wanting to incorporate the Assassins Creed character into a collage with pieces of artillery gear. The artwork looks like it was spit out by an AI bot no less.

One thing that makes me have a little hope: the general public sees no value at all in AI-generated work. Everyone knows it feels like a cheat and the quality is half-assed. Maybe the hype around it will calm down and the technology will ultimately just be used on very specific yet mundane tasks rather than a profit-generating scheme to replace half of the nation's work force.

 

[Pauly]

AI is here to stay.

Get with it and learn to adapt.
We use AI everywhere in our shop.

Staff use it for assistance all the time. Its free. use it. We pay for it and what not, but its a tool.

If customers generate artwork for it, thats fine, rework it let them know what you need to do and costs and im sure they'd understand.
If they dont then they're on a super tight budget and probably not your customer.

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

I've been using AI to look up sign codes. Has made it much easier!

 

[Johnny Best]

People create their own artwork using AI, and all the “designers” start to complain about straighting it out to use for their need to reproduce it. But the truth is the “designers” are useing machines and software that makes them look like actual ‘designers” when they really do not have any artistic abilities. Just using and remembering how to use the tools that they have learned from youtube videos or others before them. The word copiers can replace “designers” Most of you don’t have any original ideas and when you see AI artwork done by the general public and you can’t copy it,that is where you get frightened because you see your days numbered so you make fun of this new look the same way as people did with Picasso and Dali with there new look. In the past when the Gerber came out all the hand lettering people complained the same way. “history repeats itself”.

 

[d fleming]

I just went through this with a customer who has a painting business. Had an AI logo, wanted his truck lettered. Already had business cards made with it. But he wanted some changes. The outline of a swoop went into the two letters that are the start of the name of the company (like TG Plumbing). He wanted that separated. I pointed out that the two initials at the start of the name were different fonts. And the letters of the other word were malformed (they had odd bends in the ends of the letters). There were also 4 different color outlines around the letters and he didn't want one of the colors. And of course everything was prismatic and shaded. He also wanted the lettering to stretch across both doors of his crew cab but the logo was square. And even at a size to put on one of the doors of the truck it's only 15 dpi. I told him it would be probably 2 weeks before we would get it done with a fully editable vector recreation of the logo and he said OK. So lo and behold I email him a proof of the finished logo and a design on the truck just he wanted and he says I already got it done somewhere else because you took so long. And lo and behold he just has a 15 dpi print of it on the front doors of the truck and nothing at all like what he asked for. Dam meth head painters.

And that is why you take a deposit before you touch a design. To separate the tire kickers from the customers. If they can't handle making a deposit for your services they weren't a customer to begin with.
Next best way to get me to say no is to ask if my price is cheaper for cash with no tax.

 

[Gwenofeve]

There's some great tracing programs and then you can edit to make it work. As someone who designs and does the sales I am a little disappointed in not being able to use more of my creativity. On the extremely bright side, I don't have to deal with a super unimaginable customer who has no clue what they want and can't explain and hates everything. Those people I want on Chatgpt figuring it out for themselves what they want so they don't have to be a royal pain! lol

 

[binki]

We once received 'artwork' that was a photo of a tattoo.

 

[The Vector Doctor]

We once received 'artwork' that was a photo of a tattoo.

Sometimes you get customers who use their phone to take a photo of their computer screen that is showing a photo of their tattoo. Instead of attaching the original photo.

 

[binki]

Sometimes you get customers who use their phone to take a photo of their computer screen that is showing a photo of their tattoo. Instead of attaching the original photo.

We get screen shots of stuff done on a phone. Usually I can do a search on the image and find it. The latest was last week. A photo of something on Etsy.

 

[unclebun]

There's some great tracing programs and then you can edit to make it work. As someone who designs and does the sales I am a little disappointed in not being able to use more of my creativity. On the extremely bright side, I don't have to deal with a super unimaginable customer who has no clue what they want and can't explain and hates everything. Those people I want on Chatgpt figuring it out for themselves what they want so they don't have to be a royal pain! lol

There are laughable tracing programs that do so poorly with the AI-generated slop that you end up doing all the work yourself.

There, I fixed it for you.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

AI is here to stay.

I agree. I don't like it, it's not up to par on any metric unfortunately, but the powers that be need it to succeed. So it's going to stay.

Get with it and learn to adapt.
We use AI everywhere in our shop.

Not necessarily. Just because something is new, doesn't make it worth it. Not all that glitters is gold and all that jazz. Plus, the older that I get, the less I like not being in charge of my own tools and if it's something that I depend on to make money, I don't want to have to worry about it being down (for whatever reason I can't access it at a given time).

Staff use it for assistance all the time. Its free. use it. We pay for it and what not, but its a tool.

The problem with these types of "tools" with the higher level abstraction, is that people aren't really learning what they are getting "assistance" on. So they aren't really improving, the next time, they will still have to use it, maybe for a little bit more compared to the previous time. And that just keeps on going and going. We have (well depending on how old you are that is) seen this play out in tech before. It's already at the point that people are learning just the abstraction and not really what goes on under the hood. They don't have to be experts, but knowing at least helps with troubleshooting or at least be able to do something if/when the connection goes down.

Bare in mind, depending on what one is doing, it may be violating contracts if one is using non local "AI" to do the work. Over the years, I have had a lot of NDA clients and this would have been a violation of that if going with WAN "AI" and having it work on the project.

If customers generate artwork for it, thats fine, rework it let them know what you need to do and costs and im sure they'd understand.

Hahahahaha. I need that laugh. Thanks, that's a good one.

If they dont then they're on a super tight budget and probably not your customer.

Or, because of this high level abstraction, they think everything is just as easy for the next person. It's pressing a button and that's it. That's the problem with the more abstractions that people tend to lean on without knowing what's going on under the hood. Which goes into this:

Serious hazards exist for letting AI replace human software developers. ChatGPT or Claude may be able to write code in any number of programming languages. But the generated code is often a mess. A software bug or security hole might be really hard to fix if the code is a bunch of gobbledygook. Some firms that were quick to fire human developers had to later re-hire some of those former employees or find new ones if they recklessly burned bridges with the firing process.

It's actually worse. SE has been going down hill for awhile (kinda like the movie industry has) and that does create inertia actually in favor of "AI". I talk about high level abstractions, going into code, it's very hard to find people that deal with ASM, C, C++, although Rust is on the rise (not a fan, but I digress) (I have been doing stuff with retro home brew, good luck with that on a mass scale now to be able to read/fix issues, if starting with "AI" as a launching point), however, "you" can't spit without hitting a front end dev or script kiddie (both high level abstractions and why are we seeing more and more web based UIs (and I don't mind the Electron app for a non trivial cross platform app that has no other competitor and I have used either webview or the installed browser for some of my non trivial apps (I have one for stop motion that I used a web ui for versus Qt like Dragonframe uses)) even with system tooling (shoot even Adobe has CEF embedded in some of their CC programs, same with Windows system programs going off webview)). This is just visual programming and/or live trace/power trace on steroids. And there are even "professionals" that depend on this as well. All with their limitations, finding people that can still use the abstraction, but when necessary get in there and do ASM/C/C++ when necessary is getting harder and harder even not considering "AI" in the mix. And that goes in the graphics world as well. I know people in the graphics world that are not only dependent on some of the more higher level abstractions in programs, but are dependent on a specific implementation of it as well (live/power trace being one, in embroidery it would be the same thing, but their auto conversion program, which none have really good results unless the source fits a very narrow set of parameters to aid in conversion).