I mean, bad photos and bad imaging have been around forever.... as well as Photoshop tweaks (guilty as charged)...but the level of 'realism' is now to the point where you choke on images like this as they INFER this is a real shot.

I can remember years ago, some AMERICAN equipment supplier, I think they were foisting off passenger cars, that had a PRINTED advertisement in the hobby press of what was absolutely, positively, without question, a Russian passenger train. Buffers and Cyrillic lettering. And it was on their web page.

And fearlessly identifying themselves as all american. They are defunct now. Hard to top that one until you see an EMD cab seamlessly grafted on to a smokebox.

My son the Software Engineer showed me this.... by a simple suggestion of "show me a picture of what you think (town name here) looks like". That was all.

It was really, really scary, result photo resolution, wrong buildings, some european, a non-existent skyscraper, but yeah, it sorta looked like it. I laughed. I'm no longer laughing.

Why bother to pay programmers to train AI when the entire internet is there to roam the planet and scrape data for free? GIGO.

Exactly, the savings is by NOT paying humans, and stealing other peoples work.

Don't forget AI Music. I have been amusing myself by "making" F40PH songs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYkJJR_eMws

See the 9th post, first page for a very broad brush overview of AI music.

And....
I'd be wary of using AI music on Youtube unless you purchased an exclusive right to use and distribute said music and can defend your "exclusive" right (very hard if not impossible to do - read and comprehend the service agreement). AI companies are finding stuff generated using their samples and issuing take-down notices. And they find it using... AI. If you can't defend your rights to distribute, the video will be removed and you'll get a copyright strike (as ridiculous as that sounds, yeah, it happens). Three strikes and you're booted off the platform, sorry, not sorry. If you want more info on AI, copyrights and Youtube, I'll be happy to send you some links. On Youtube.

We're getting waaaay off the topic of absurd AI images but...
At one time, I considered AI creating anything artistic as a toy. Not any more. It's a threat. Ask the AI companies where they get their data for training. You'll get a long-winded non-answer. Where the data comes from is the web sampling copyrighted material and "interpolating" it to something slightly different than the originals, combining those training samples together and selling the rights to use their "creation". The funny thing is that it's common knowledge what they're doing. Some try to defend it under the fair use doctrine albeit with a smirk on their faces. It's blatant copyright infringement, hence all the lawsuits. This mess won't get straightened out until Congress decides to freshen up copyright law. Sadly I don't see that happening any sooner than maybe 5 to 10 years if ever (money talks). By then, we creatives just may be a tiny, obsolete, niche bunch, dumpster diving and living in a cardboard box under a bridge.

Just so you know, I not only twist bolts, pound on things and occasionally set stuff on fire for fun and giggles, I'm also a retired musician, graphic artist and occasional photographer. Hence my concern with AI illegally absconding with the work of my brothers and sisters and making money off our backs. It's getting ever harder, almost impossible to make a living being a creative.

Rant over.

I toiled in the visual arts mine for 40 years; it was both work and fun until the vein I was digging went full-blown digital. Then it was just work. Part of that 40 years was spent in a venue where the final customers were the equivalent of "rivet counters." One of the least pleasant ways to spend part of one's day is being raked over the coals by a self-styled SME convinced that he sees an error in the depiction of an object that generally was field-modified over time. This is missing... or that was added... or they weren't that way until (x)... etc. I stifled the urge to brain people over the years, but if AI becomes fully sentient, look out.

As for dumb-assed imagery - AI or otherwise - nothing is sacred and no special interest group has clean hands. At least not for long.

The printing press put the people who hand-copied documents out of work, but they found something else to do.

Photography put illustrators out of work, but they found something else to do.

CGI has put plenty of practical effects people out of work, but they've found something else to do.

I understand the fear for one's livelihoods, but Generative AI is just the next in a long line of human productivity advancements. It is foolish to try to ignore it or put the genie back in the bottle (through legislation or litigation).

Commerce demands efficiency and it that drive towards efficiency what underpins our entire highly successful economic system.

It is our own personal responsibility to figure out what else to do.

I'm all for progress as long as it's beneficial to all in some way. Technology took away the web portion of my business. I was fine with that as keeping up with the rapid changes in coding was getting to be a huge pain in the buttocks but I do use those new tools for maintaining websites (at no charge) for a few small nonprofits that can't really afford the mainstream maintenance costs. That's strictly my choice.

AI has its place but you have to draw a line somewhere. A possible reality is that if unrestricted AI puts enough people out of work by shrinking the jobs market, who is left to buy the products it produces? Who is going to support all the millions or billions that are out of work? Where does that money come from? That's the long range concern. If you don't start thinking about it now, you will if comes for you and you no longer have or have access to learn the next appropriate skill sets. Apathy or complacency now does not serve one well in the long run. Just my two cents, no offense meant.

My current short term beef is the way they're training it. Why would you give up your hard work for free to someone that wants to illegally put you out of business? And you currently have no say in the matter. I guess it's the element of greed that really gets my knickers in a twist.

Lastly, I do apologize for derailing the thread.

The answer is, as it has always been: we'll figure it out.

Like I said, there is no way to "put the genie back in the bottle". The tools are out there and people are going to use them. The commercial world isn't like a school where someone can get thrown out for "cheating". In fact, the commercial world largely rewards cheating. So even if some governing body said "no more GenAI in ads", people will still figure out ways to use it surreptitiously.



I don't know why people would do that, but they already have.
I think it's important to point out, though, that the "training" of it is not the "theft" that people make it out to be. The internet doesn't come with terms and conditions. If someone puts something out there, it's out there.

And while people can be legally penalized for misusing it using existing statutes, this stuff does not fall under them.

I know, I know, it feels wrong, but there aren't laws against having a computer analyze publicly available data and determine patterns from it. That's what this technology does.

I have to go back about 30 years, but one lesson I learned early working in this group was that you never underestimate the lack of railroad knowledge of your customers.

One operation I worked with had a nice brochure and web page, but they put in a picture of the railroad as it looked about 1860, with a funnel-stacked 4-4-0, reference to history. There was NO WRITTEN MENTION of a steam locomotive, anywhere. You'd THINK people would realize that was a 120-year old view from a glass plate, but....

We did an intercept study and the results kinda floored me on 'what did you like the least about your visit to the railroad? #1 critical answer was that 'we thought there was a steam engine here ....' in various flavors of responses. Wow, I had them change that the next year. You wouldn't think.....seriously??

So now you can AI virtually anything into anything, and make it photorealistic, and promote an attraction with things that don't actually exist, and you can be blamed for it. Those travel images cooked up on the Durango & Silverton can't be taken seriously....can they? And remember, that was an agency, not the railroad. No control. if you're selling trips and fantasy, there's no guard rails here.

I've always chuckled when Any Given Operation gets the TripAdvisor negative review that 'we came back on the same track we left on'... but this is a whole new world of irrational expectations.

Randy - One thing I learned early on doing web design: Never overestimate the comprehension, common sense or intelligence of your intended audience. I know that sounds gawdawful arrogant but to assume otherwise always caused more of a problem, or at the least a plethora of questions, than it should have. And no matter how well you try to "KISS" it, there are those out there....

I'll need to see if I can find it, but I saw an ad for a halloween "scream train" or something like that that
had a Thomas likeness, made to look scary.
As I'm aware that someone needs to be paid when Thomas's likeness is used, I was wondering if they were trying to skirt copywrite laws.

Truth.

You'd know for sure when you've received the Cease and Desist letter.

Not necessarily. Places and corporations with lawyers tend to send out C&D letters to any even vaguely potentially "infringing" party like politicians sent campaign flyers to voters in the "seven states at play" this past presidential election. Those lawyers and IP folks gotta justify their retainers and salaries, after all.

Not to defend instances of brazen infringement, of course, but HIT Entertainment (or whoever by now) didn't invent, patent, and copyright the entire concept of a face on a steam locomotive smokebox front........