AI content is polarizing. When users notice that AI has been used in art, a negative reaction often follows. So, let’s run a quick experiment.
Take a look at the image below. I just generated an image, in the style of a Monet painting, using artificial intelligence. I used the latest AI models trained on the world’s best works of art. Take a look and think about what makes this image inferior to a real Monet painting. Think about what you like and don’t like about it.
Now, what if I told you I lied? The image is a real Monet. A few weeks ago, user X SHLOMS performed the same exercise. Let’s talk about what happened.
Summary
The post that started it all
Over 1,300 people responded to SHLOMS’ post with resoundingly similar feedback. Almost everyone who responded said this AI art was pure crap.
They said there was a lack of “coherent composition.” The colors were an “incoherent mess”. Some said he was “trying too hard.”
Others called the image a “clear AI anomaly.” They called it “rubbish” and “space nonsense nonsense”. Users have spotted holes in every aspect of the painting. They questioned its meaninglessness and how AI art simply lacks the magical quality imbued with human creativity.
But there’s a problem… this Monet painting is real.
The “AI” painting that fooled thousands of people
SHOLMS lied. It was their version of a social experiment. They took a real (much-loved) Monet painting, pretended it was an AI-generated image, and then measured the reaction.
I’ll be honest. My gut reaction to post X was the same. I immediately thought it was nonsense. I tried to spot the flaws and thought the colors were off. And it turns out we all do.
When we think that art is created by artificial intelligence, we tend to hate it. In fact, when we think that something requires no effort to build, we don’t like it.
Let’s follow what Andrea MoralesLonnie L. Ostrom, chair of economics and professor in the Department of Marketing at Arizona State University, calls it an “effort heuristic.” In other words, if something took two seconds to generate, we would hate it. If it took 15 years of work to perfect, we would love it.
In a 2005 study published in Journal of Consumer ResearchMorales found that people generally reward actions that required a lot of effort. The study followed 46 participants who were looking for a new home. They were told to hire a real estate agent to help them with their search. The agent looked at your preferences and created a personalized list of 10 apartments.
However, 23 participants were told that the agent “did everything manually and spent nine hours building the list.” The other 23 were told that “the agent used a computer program, only spending an hour on the list.”
In reality, the houses on both listings were identical. The real estate agent lied about how much time he spent searching. It always took an hour.
But perception was influenced by perceived effort. Participants who were told that creating the list took nine hours rated the homes 30.5 percent higher. We use effort as an indicator to measure quality, especially when quality is difficult to measure.
So when 6.8 million people saw an image of a real Monet painting but thought it was generated by artificial intelligence, they immediately called it “slop.”
This presents a complicated contradiction. We are repeatedly told that to compete we must embrace artificial intelligence. But the Morales study shows a different perspective.
If we only use artificial intelligence (or even if people think we only use artificial intelligence), people will feel the need to hate our work. The fantastic copywriter Dave Harland calls it “Death by cuttlefish.”
Taken from Dave’s “The Word” newsletter (subscribe Here).
The Bluebell owner might think this sign is infinitely better than a standard chalkboard sign. They might say, “It’s colorful! It stands out! It includes our entire menu! Even a glass of wine!”
But most people will see it and recognize that off-sepia tone as AI. And as we saw with Monet, once people think something is being created lazily with AI alone, they won’t like it.
I spoke to Professor Matt Johnson about why some AI content doesn’t work in a recent episode of Nudge. Listen here.
Create something meaningful.
Artificial intelligence changes the calculus of creation, but it does not change human psychology. People still want to know that someone cared and put something of themselves into the work.
Your audience is making the same calculations about everything you post. Give them a reason to believe that someone has put time, effort and skill into your marketing.
