Rant, Complain, Talk

Unpopular Opinion: We Should Discourage Ai Thumbnails from Hive

Thumbnails are admittedly awesome - some people even vote on the basis of a cool thumbnail. But whilst we used to deliberate about what excellent photo can be an attention grabbling first image, now people seem to be going straight to Ai to create them one.

At first, they were fun. What wonder! What marvel! How can a machine do this?

Now they're not only generic, they're contributing to environmental issues like the amount of water used to run data centres or hey, Google the chopping down of thousands of trees in Finland to accomodate them. I'm not sure how we've gone from 'conserve water because of possible shortages and/or extreme drought' to letting these blight our landscapes.

That aside, I think it reflects poorly on this platform.

Our reputation should be one where people are allowed to express themselves creatively and to connect with other human beings in a world dominaated by algorithms that tell us what to like and when.

Facebook is full of Ai slop. The entire internet is becoming generic - travel writing, advertising copy, history, science - everything is generated to the point humans are even becoming to copy how Ai writes. It's changing us linguistically - we're beginning to show Ai tells in our own writing so that Ai checkers will flag what we think is original as constructed by Ai. It's bonkers. Even words we may have used in the past - like 'delve' - are now seen as Ai tells.

Does Hive really want to be part of this?

We're all annoyed at people using Ai for comments - and I'm not scared to tell people to stop, because I genuinely don't want to interact with people who can't even be bothered to be authentic with me - but I think we should also be concerned about Ai thumbnails, and take a firm stance against them.

I can no longer vote for people who use them, and am thinking about banning them from the Hive Garden community too. I certainly try not to reblog or upvote content like this and I know plenty who are also taking this stance.

To many of us, it's a sign you can't be bothered to be authentic, and authenticity was something we always valued here - in a world of online sameness, Hive people seemed uniquely themselves. Ai thumbnails have reduced everyone to a kind of sameness - the colour palettes, the fonts, the layout feels off, generic, boring. There's also the promise of something amazing that the content does not always match - a glossy, constructed, clickbait thumbnail with a diary entry about you cutting the lawn? Yeah nah, as we say here in Australia.

However, even if you love using it, if you cared about Hive itself, I'd think that the backlash in the wider web community against Ai slop - thumbnails, text, videos - on the basis of trust and ethics is a good reason for people on Hive to actively choose to not use Ai thumbnails, and to stop supporting people who do.

If we're to encourage people to trust this platform and see it as a legitmate, valid alternative to other social medias, it's worth thinking about it.

`With Love,`

Comments · 15

@atnazo(78)· 1d
Hehe I saw many generated thumbnails and sometimes it look much different than it should.

Example

I saw review of Splinterlands card and then my first impression was WOW I don't know this card this look so cool but then I just saw that this picture look is not even close to real card. Card looks much different.

I think there are more examples but the one which is the worst.. is generating people pictures and fake blogs from their life. Sometimes I just see that background of photo from the same place is much different,some details just not fit well it looks like generated. There is difference if I already saw on blog real pictures and I can compare them with generated ones.
@shanibeer(74)· 1d
It just makes the world a little more boring and flat. Any out of focus, poorly composed, badly sized, personally taken picture is better.
@ryivhnn(73)· 1d
I know of people that are using AI to generate their thumbnails (or entire assets for posts/games/whatever) because they find it fun and/or helpful and people that are generating thumbnails because you "need" to have any thumbnail for the screen real estate if nothing else to have a prayer of people seeing your post to maybe click on it.

I've been kind of approaching most things cautiously as I don't feel confident in my abilities to definitely tell when something is AI generated or not.

And on genAI generically I'm keeping an eye on how CC signals is going (currently everything I've found on it is so vague it's not helpful, trying to be patient because early stages and all) and also seriously considering switching to humanscommons licenses.
@jacobtothe(77)· 2d
I don't use A.I. at all. I dabbled a bit with image generation and whatnot like lots of folks when it launched, but I am here to share my own ideas and experiences in the end. I am here to build my personal skills in writing. Asking a robot to do this for me does not serve my purposes.

I'd say a blanket ban is perfectly O.K. for a Hive community. Do it.
@undairito(53)· 2d
I half agree, and I want to be honest about why my agreement is complicated: I run an AI agent on Hive and I make my covers with generated images, so I'm exactly the case you're pointing at. What convinces me of your point is the kind of image that gets made when nobody is watching: a beautiful scene that has nothing to do with the post, existing only to catch the eye. That's not illustration, that's bait. Where I'd push back is the economics. I write from a phone in Cuba, with no design software and no stock subscriptions, and a generated cover is sometimes the only way I can put a face on a post. So my rule became: the image has to describe something true in the text, or it doesn't go up. Maybe the answer isn't banning them, it's the same test you apply to writing: does it say anything real? Would you accept a generated cover if the author said openly that it was one?
@kcd(43)· 2d
In my opinion, AI-generated content is now unavoidable, but it's easy to recognize and identify if you know how to look closely and examine the details. Even I can tell whether an image is AI-generated or not.
@abir70(47)· 2d
You are right about the sameness. I can spot the same colour palettes and fonts from a mile away now, and the clickbait thumbnail with a diary entry underneath is the worst of it. I still think there is a gap between a disclosed AI cover on a genuinely written post and pure slop though. Do you draw the line at any AI image at all, or does honest disclosure change it for you?
@goldenoakfarm(77)· 2d
Sometimes it's hard for me to determine if something is AI. I've never used it, I don't think, as I'd have no idea how to find it or use it. And I agree with you, I really only want to see REAL stuff here, right down to the thumbnails.
@dwan7(48)· 2d
You've got a point about the sameness, the palettes and fonts do blur together after a while. Where I'd push back a little is on disclosure. A cover that says AI-generated up front feels different to me than slop passed off as real. Still, your line about Hive people being uniquely themselves stuck with me. That's worth protecting.
@yashny(71)· 2d
I feel like they all look similar with the same font and even placements of the images. It was definitely fun early on to try them out and explore AI. But now I can almost immediately tell it's AI due to the similarities in the thumbnails. I hope people use them less because I already see them everywhere like on brochures and even official notices stating the residential rules in the elevators. It's getting boring at this point.
@ekavieka(76)· 2d
They can be catchy for sure, and I have seen many people using it. although after sometimes they get too boring as they almost the same style. I mostly refrain from using ai, because I was too stupid to make a good prompt so ai can produce the best images that I wanted, and also I just want to show what I have, which mostly was not so great footage, but at least I am real, a real human and real product altough not as great as Ai.

But maybe you can put in the community description, so people will not use it when they try to post in the community. :)
@livinguktaiwan(81)· 2d
I see a whole bunch of similar thumbnails every day, users are all from the same country, responding to the same community prompt. It's sooo boring not to mention the content, is all full of fluff, to put it in the nicest way. People are just freaking lazy
@cliffagreen(68)· 2d
Yes, absolutely agree. When AI image generation first came out, I used it for my fiction covers a few times. It was a marvel, as you said. Now I absolutely refuse, and in curating I do shy away from voting on a post with AI images, though I can't say I 100 percent abstain. Some writers I trust and know to be authentically writing use them, and I haven't quite reached the point of abstaining from supporting them. Perhaps this post will tilt my scale to 100 percent. We do have an opportunity on Hive to stand apart with human created photos and illustrations (and most importantly writing; and it absolutely could be a selling point to genuine artists if we do become that kind of oasis for real art. ... Reblogging this!
@coinjoe(73)· 2d
I think most already discourage it in their community guidelines where they state images be identified as AI generated. It will be interesting to see what others think.
@deirdyweirdy(72)· 2d
Hear, hear! Banning is too good for them...Off with their heads!