The FEVERED battle over AI imaging..

It’s getting HOT out there among the pixels..

Those of you have been to the farm, and those of you with an eye for the indicators will know which of these images was created by a paid artist we love, Jessica Ryder, and which was created by Grok, but I ask you to be honest: would the average person, watching images pass by, take the time to assess the difference?

Be honest..

I have an interesting generational connection to AI images. A few years ago, one of my millennial sons observed that some of the farm images were looking “too Photoshop filtery,” meaning they had a kind of dated 90s look. He pushed me towards Midjourney, and I used it a few times when I couldn’t find the perfect farm photograph. I’ve been in this business long enough to have scoured old magazines, old books, and old posters in the public domain to give our advertising a period look, so images generated from a description were absolutely CHARMING to this old man. After all, I do not have a permanent social media and illustration team, so I usually have to be the one to remind you that you should be visiting us at least once a week.

Well, Gabriel, my Gen-Zer, expressed extreme caution on the use of AI because he informed me (with absolute accuracy) that Gen Z HATES AI Images with a passion. I found out how true this was yesterday when one correspondent on Instagram wrote that AI and data centers are “destroying the planet.” Another wrote, “the idea that a farm which praises Americas [sic] Colonial era..would be pro AI is some of the most idiotic boomer bs I could ever imagine.” When I reminded him of the disruptive effect of new technology throughout history, referencing Luddite power-loom destruction, electric lights, modern plumbing, photography, he wrote, these were all “a modern development of a skill you absolute retard.” He frosted that off by referencing my “tiny deteriorating old brain.” (I’m not quite sure how modern public restrooms represent a “skill development” that anyone resents. Are there any night-soilsmen picketing these days?)

So, yes, using AI in some quarters is something like using a Quran to light up pork ribs at a Hamas barbecue. These kids are PASSIONATE.

I will likely have to take that seriously, even though I think the logic is flawed. Technology is not evil. We use technology for good or for evil. AI generated video produced the hilarious Spencer Pratt commercials earlier this year. My News Mirror ad yesterday had a little newsboy holding up a headline reading, “Please No Communists.” One correspondent responded “right, while supporting a surveillance state..” Good grief. In a hurry to get a little scroll banner with some copy on it, for the bottom of your ad? You are supporting a “surveillance state.”

If AI is used to create some sort of social indexing system or to subvert democracy, then, yes, we can talk, but the guy who needs a poster for his hardware store? Some of you kids are acting like brown shirts.

There’s a bit of a tragedy in all of this.  In my case, I absolutely love the graphic art and the advertising splash of late 19th and 20th century America — movie posters, travel ads, fruit crate art, Belle Époque, linen postcards, brick wall murals, wartime bond drives–all of it.  I even told my writerly daughter that “all the world is graphic art,” not so much because it’s true as a spiritual principle but because designers used art and typography to fill every space we saw with pure, economic, pleasant “pitches.”  Vacation in Tahiti.  Uncle Sam Wants You.  Sip a cocktail in Miami.  I mean, if you are going to be pitched, you might as well enjoy the romance of the promise. Well composed images, and poetic copy, do that.

The tragedy in this?  As AI art improves, even someone trying to create that mood with text-to-image generation, Photoshop layering, and inventive language will be able to create images virtually indistinguishable from the “Wonderful Life” poster reproduced here.  BUT IT WILL BE BANNED, because everyone assumed AI had a hand in it, but it was really a human being using a machine to create an image.

I don’t doubt that living history farms will someday (maybe now), face stiff competition from virtual reality experiences. I get it, and I’m ready for it. There will always be a place for the real thing, but I don’t make the current reality. I respond to it, with as much virtue as I can muster.

So go ahead, you can begin the vulgar, ageist invective.

Categorised in: Farm Journal

This post was written by Jim Riley