extremely noticeably so, too. A shame that the judges arent equipped to notice this sort of thing: the winning entry is pretty clearly the sort of result you get with a first naive attempt of "make a poster" with no style guidelines at all.
My workplace did a sweepstakes for the world cup and there were bonus prizes for decorating your desk. All three winners had simply uploaded photos of their desks to an AI image generator and had it add flags etc to decorate and submitted that. One person used AI to make it look like he was wearing the jersey of his assigned team.
The person running the contest wrote up something about how impressed she was with the creative use of AI.
The whole thing makes me sad - wouldn't the idea of this sort of thing be to scrounge up flags of obscure countries or make them out of paper and do a bit of arts and crafts to decorate your desk for the month? Instead people were just throwing 50 words into an AI system a few times and getting out a photo to submit.
Notably, the zipline is all wacky, and two piggies are #1, probably more things I didn't notice at a skim?
I guess they didn't explicitly forbid AI, and it wasn't noticed until after the winner was selected, and now you can't "roll back"? It seems this was later added to the page:
> [...] we recognize that the use of AI has changed greatly over the last few years in ways we didn’t anticipate, and will be reevaluating the rules and processes for 2027, which will include prohibiting the use of AI [...]
> Notably, the zipline is all wacky, and two piggies are #1, probably more things I didn't notice at a skim?
To nitpick, the Flags can't decide on if the US had 9 or 11 original colonies -- for celebrating "America's 250th birthday" the person that created it could have at least made sure the flag wasn't weird. Sheldon would be having a field day...
People don't care and will continue not to care. I don't say that lamenting or with resignation. It's just a fact that we will need to accept.
Think of all the poor typography around you. If you have a critical eye and care you can spot all sorts of bad choices: That's a preview of the future. AI-generated disposable art (posters, billboards, menus etc) that is orthogonal to the actual thing being sold will continue being the norm.
People were submitting ai photos last year in the local fair for physical photography. Fairs really need to re think how they do these awards like requiring the photo negative to be submitted or the actual digital art files or something.
I just drove through rural Washington and Idaho and saw similar style flyers on all the boards at grocery stores and local businesses. Saw some AI image stickers for sale at an espresso stand in Idaho. USA 250 AI stuff all over northern Idaho. AI flags. Funny stuff. Love it
There is a real lag between people who can leverage AI vs those who can't. People who code using AI have a real advantage of using AI in different contexts because they understand how powerful it is.
It's very similar to when the internet got big and those who knew how to use it had a significant advantage over those who didn't. AI hasn't really diffused to mass audience yet, at least not to the point of using it to the extent coders do like making custom and even one-off apps, using CC or Codex instead of ChatGPT directly since giving it terminal access makes in 100x more powerful than the web interface.
In the 1990s there was a backlash against Photoshop. Traditional artists and designers viewed Photoshop as "cheating," "not real art," and a threat to hand-made craft. This story [1] from 17 years ago called for a ban on airbrushed photos. Today use of Photoshop and airbrushing is standard practice, and it is expected. In time we will come to accept AI art too.
personally it's really interesting to see how older people just don't understand AI images, they seemingly can't spot it or understand what it is and how it all just looks like slop
I'm not trying to be ignorant but I just can't imagine how it'd be in their shoes, I can't understand how AI slop still just works so many of these people, like it's been 3 years now, how is it possible that you'd be impressed or satisfied by this?
Art is in the eye of the beholder and If someone likes something AI generated and it still came from someone who had the idea did it not? What if the artist is blind or disabled? AI is now giving them a chance to express themselves as they otherwise might not have been able to.
the judges graded it on how much stuff was crammed into the frame and gave it first place. turns out the one skill AI image generators are best at — filling every pixel with something — is also the one skill art judges can't tell apart from effort.
I would say the AI post doesn't look bad. But I also think it defeats the purpose of the competition. The goal was to make something for your community, and the process and effort shows your dedication to said community.
Imagine everyone just prompts the same AI and and the judge uses the same AI to judge them all. Why make a competition in the first place? Just prompt and create the damn poster and leave the whole community thing behind.
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[ 0.28 ms ] story [ 23.3 ms ] threadThe person running the contest wrote up something about how impressed she was with the creative use of AI.
The whole thing makes me sad - wouldn't the idea of this sort of thing be to scrounge up flags of obscure countries or make them out of paper and do a bit of arts and crafts to decorate your desk for the month? Instead people were just throwing 50 words into an AI system a few times and getting out a photo to submit.
Note the pigs are numbered 1, 2, 1. And the gondola with a floating cable and another that terminates at a tent top.
Notably, the zipline is all wacky, and two piggies are #1, probably more things I didn't notice at a skim?
I guess they didn't explicitly forbid AI, and it wasn't noticed until after the winner was selected, and now you can't "roll back"? It seems this was later added to the page:
> [...] we recognize that the use of AI has changed greatly over the last few years in ways we didn’t anticipate, and will be reevaluating the rules and processes for 2027, which will include prohibiting the use of AI [...]
July 7 2026 mirror of the page without that updated notice: https://web.archive.org/web/20260707145158/https://www.ohios...
To nitpick, the Flags can't decide on if the US had 9 or 11 original colonies -- for celebrating "America's 250th birthday" the person that created it could have at least made sure the flag wasn't weird. Sheldon would be having a field day...
Ironic.
Think of all the poor typography around you. If you have a critical eye and care you can spot all sorts of bad choices: That's a preview of the future. AI-generated disposable art (posters, billboards, menus etc) that is orthogonal to the actual thing being sold will continue being the norm.
I will never accept AI generated items as creative nor valid entries in a contest.
It looks AI-generated. All that detail. Short words in decorative fonts. AI doesn't know what "Midway" means in a fair context.
It's very similar to when the internet got big and those who knew how to use it had a significant advantage over those who didn't. AI hasn't really diffused to mass audience yet, at least not to the point of using it to the extent coders do like making custom and even one-off apps, using CC or Codex instead of ChatGPT directly since giving it terminal access makes in 100x more powerful than the web interface.
4th: https://cdn.saffire.com/images.ashx?t=ig&rid=OhioStateFair&i...
5th: https://cdn.saffire.com/images.ashx?t=ig&rid=OhioStateFair&i...
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/sep/19/liberal-dem...
I'm not trying to be ignorant but I just can't imagine how it'd be in their shoes, I can't understand how AI slop still just works so many of these people, like it's been 3 years now, how is it possible that you'd be impressed or satisfied by this?
Imagine everyone just prompts the same AI and and the judge uses the same AI to judge them all. Why make a competition in the first place? Just prompt and create the damn poster and leave the whole community thing behind.