Luc
GlyphPlease do not add genAI images to punch up your writing. You might think that it adds a nice little bit of visual pizazz to your content-marketing piece, but what you're actually doing is *making it look like content marketing* rather than a useful resource. To the extent that content marketing is an effective tactic, it is because you build trust with the customer by providing them valuable information. A genAI turd plopped on top of your writing is a signal that it will be worthless slop.
I understand the appeal, I also wish I were a competent illustrator, I also see some genAI stuff that looks kinda neat, I learned about the dollar-bill rule when I was the layout editor for my high school newspaper, I understand wanting to break up big blocks of text with visual interest for lighter writing. This is why, when I can, I take custom photos or include relevant classical art in my blog. Sometimes I'll even just use a stock image. It feels like genAI is like that but more customized.
But it isn't. Unless you are a *real* master with these tools there is an unavoidable sheen that they leave on the generated image. It's the smell, if there is such a thing. This is not just me; if you go anywhere that younger people are congregating online, "boomer art" is the *most* polite thing that they call this stuff. It damages your credibility. If you were lazy enough to fake the image, are you lazy enough to fake the facts? It is *much* worse than just having no image at all.
This is hardly an original insight. Lots of other people are posting this exact advice. But I want to emphasize it because I just passed on linking to a page for like the 10th time this week because it included a big genAI hero image which looked like absolute shit. Scanning the article briefly it actually looked pretty good, it did not read like LLM slop, but it is a reputational risk to link to something that will give readers that immediate negative impression, and it's not worth it.
As a reference, one of the best and most prolific writers that is (relatively) positive about genAI tools has a website that looks like this: https://simonwillison.net . Please observe the amount of genAI art that he is using for punch-ups or hero images
psst @simon you should add attribution tags to your site :)
Cassandra is only carbon now@glyph Saw this example of a neat interstitial image that isn't genAI and doesn't require being a skilled illustrator.
Parker Molloy used a screengrab from the video that she was discussing, and edited it for visual effect in a really cool way. It takes artistic skill, but not necessarily skill as an illustrator.
Feoh@glyph Thank you for writing and posting this. It may not be original, but that doesn't invalidate the truth of the advice.
The psychology around this is interesting because I've been blogging for YEARS and always felt like my posts were naked because I didn't have any splashy images to add, mostly because I'm visually and fine/gross motor impaired and art just ISN'T a thing I can do myself.
I do not intend to stop having fun with generative AI tools, because they allow me to exercise creative muscles I don't and CAN'T have, even if the quality of the produced images is highly suspect (They all have their tells, to be sure. Just look at all hard and you'll see them just about ever time).
However I will stop adding these images to my professional posts and will remove those I have already added. That's not the message I'm looking to send.
Sami Juvonen@glyph Thanks, I’m going to use “do you know the youngs call this boomer art” from now on. Should be a good argument because the people using slop in this way think they are at the vanguard of tech innovation. (Of course the likely outcome is they will just hate on me for being negative. 🤷♂️)
Joe@glyph I'm sympathetic that you might feel you need to have some kind of image to use for og:image; otherwise preview cards look pretty bad
I think we could bring back the Victorian "title page", with a bunch of information in different fonts:
Nini@glyph I'd argue there is no "mastery" over it. just the least terrible output which is still bad and gloppy around the edges somehow.
joëlSources where you can get interesting and free images:
Getty Museum Collection: https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/
Public Domain Review: https://publicdomainreview.org/collections
Public Work: https://public.work/
PhyloPic: https://www.phylopic.org/
MNAHA Collections (careful, check copyright, not everything is public domain here!) https://collections.mnaha.lu/index/
QIMBY (quality transport): https://qimby.net/
Noah Khttps://morguefile.com/ - Just make sure you don't accidentally follow the upsell links.
https://museo.app/ - Searches the collections of a bunch of museums at once.
https://etc.usf.edu/clipart/ - Specializes in old-timey line drawings. Sister site has old maps.
https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/view/all?sort=pub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_date%2Cpub_list_no%2Cseries_no - Lots of very high res old books and book covers.
@coderanger @glyph nice, thanks a lot!
Trannus🇻🇪🇵🇸🇺🇦Aran@glyph how long will it take companies to realize this? all it communicates to us is that whatever they're writing is mostly garbage
@pinjontall the first few times I saw it, it was a reliable signal of garbage, and I didn't bother to comment, because sure, great, don't interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake. but now I'm seeing it on stuff which looks like it is written by actual people with some level of care. I'm not sure if this is an artifact of management pressure or social proof or what, but it's bad
NEO//LIX 🔊@glyph Decently creative (yes, prompts don't write themselves) AI-generated images = a thousand times better than meaningless stock photos. Custom human made artwork is even better, but I fully understand that not everyone has the budget to commission these. Having nothing at all looks terrible when posting links.
@neo Impossible to prove a negative, but I have never seen this. Do you have an example that would make your case?
(A lot of the time, just avoiding the hero image entirely is the right call, but sometimes a stock photo can help to convey a mood, so if it's gotta be stock or AI, I'd say go with stock as a rule.)
Alvaro 
@glyph @neo I have one. James O'Malley is a british dude with a substack that I enjoy reading. He regularly (not always) uses genAI images to illustrate his posts. I have found his writing to be nuanced, entertaining and informative.
Of course, this is just one counter example. I have (like you) unfortunately seen plenty of AI-illustrated AI-written garbage, but hopefully you find James' writing somewhat interesting
@glyph @neo I also have a colleague who insists of adding genAI pictures in his slide decks and 101% of the time they are utterly cursed. Fractal fingers, weird text, uncanny-valley humans... Sometimes all of those at once. It's incredibly distracting, and sometimes accidentally amusing
Coincidentally, he's on the boomer side of the age spectrum, so I suppose that proves your point
@almenal99 @neo I was asking for an example of a good illustration, not a good writer who uses genAI garbage; the *problem* I'm highlighting is that better writers are unfortunately starting to use this stuff, and thereby beclown themselves. (were these supposed to be good? to my eye these are absolute *peak* Boomer Art garbage)
@glyph @almenal99 Heavens, I can't remember each article that I've read and each link that I've seen. 😅 I do remember though that multiple times I was positively amused by obscure or funny AI generated images that couldn't realistically have been made otherwise, or only with a hardly justifiable amount of effort. I'm not speaking about replacing usual illustrations of photos (boring), but to do something completely different.
0x4d6165 (Julie or Mae)@glyph there are many technical blogs I simply can't read anymore cause they do this shit
Frank Patz-Brockmann@glyph Same for stock photos.
mtc_uk@glyph And while you're at it, don't put emojis in your email subject lines, because I'm going to filter them as marketing spam.
Fredrik@glyph I immediately ignore everything connected with an "AI"-generated image, it is not trustworthy.
Shadow06@glyph Seeing this more and more these days.
AdeptVeritatisYes it is a signal that will indicate worthless slop. They should use MORE genAI!
So I can get rid of these people and clean my timeline.
Worked like magic in the times of NFTs. I am not sad about anyone I lost contact to in this wave.
ahistorical immaterialist@glyph everyone can recognise these immediately now, and it just makes you look lazy and cheap
nate berkopec
Mondanzo@glyph do though: Add procedural art and pictures! Those funny generated artworks deserve the title genart much more than the heartless mass trash AI Art.
Luna chan@glyph Even the most scrubbed human art had more soul than AI art.
SLCW💥@glyph I'm of the opinion that 90% of the instincts to use AI should be discarded. If you think using AI is a good idea, 90% of time you're wrong. Remember that in your daily escapades.
⚯ Michel de Cryptadamus ⚯
@cryptadamist what can I say but “yuck”
@glyph forgot the best one from the prompt "satan endorses bitcoin". unfortunately the AI models can't make awesome stuff like this any more.
@cryptadamist I realize you are a crypto critic but maybe spending too much time thinking about crypto has given you some of their brain damage. (are you doing a bit? it seems like maybe you are doing a bit but it is going over my head)
@glyph crypto/fraud research has definitely given me some kind of psychic damage but i'm not sure what you mean by "doing a bit".
i legitimately think the "satan endorses bitcoin" AI art is some of AI's finest work, if that's what you're asking. it's incredibly alien and deeply disturbing, as such an image should be. unfortunately the AI models no longer generate those kind of images and are basically uninteresting at this point.
in my other life i'm an art collector, if that further confuses the issue.
Adam ♿@glyph I have now been told off twice for suggesting people Not Do That
@voltagex stay strong, if my notifications tab absolutely glitching out is any indication, there is a lot of sympathy for this position
mirabilos
Reid 
@glyph maybe it's just me, but if the image doesn't itself say something about the subject matter, I'd rather there's no image (looking at you, company logos with way too many effects applied to it at the top of every Verge article)
Georgie Cooke@glyph I agree. You also make a point about how stock images kinda feel this way to a lesser extent. I now won’t even bother adding photos to my writing if I don’t have my own. I’d rather people read my words with no image to grab their attention, than put a poor value image in it. Or I’ll just go out of my way to take a picture of *something* myself.
Pedes or 3 Eevees in a coat@glyph Yup if I see something with clearly AIgenerated image I just skip it.
Alex Karamazov@glyph When a book is very good, the fact of including "images" or "drawings" is useless.
dusesu@glyph I totally get the frustration here. GenAI visuals can feel like lazy filler when they’re just slapped on top of shallow content. The key is still thoughtful, useful writing. That said, for folks looking for actual tools that enhance creativity (not fake it), I’ve had a good experience with a few non-American/European software options https://skylum.com/blog/non-american-european-software . Some of them offer solid alternatives for editing and design work that don’t feel like cookie-cutter content marketing fluff.
