Truly Artificial
I’ve always been a bit turned off by the required thumbnail image that you normally see attached to a blog post. This is common in most blog themes, and is especially common in corporate blogs. My objection at the time was that the image was usually some generic nonsense that had nothing to do with the content of the post.
I feel that we may have over-corrected with the magic of AI.
Now you get very specific thumbnail images that feel like they were commissioned by an artist to attempt to tell the story of the post in a single image. I know because when I was working on the tralev project to visit every state capital, I would commission illustrations to supplement posts by guest writers.
But the AI generated images feel different. Every time I see one it feels like its way too specific. A little bit too on the nose. Instantly and truly artificial.
Thank you for reading! Share your thoughts with me on bluesky, mastodon, or via email.
Check out some more stuff to read down below.
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Recent Favorite Blog Posts
This is a collection of the last 8 posts that I bookmarked.
- Pluralistic: LLMs are slot-machines (16 Aug 2025) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
- Pluralistic: Bluesky creates the world's weirdest, hardest-to-understand binding arbitration clause (15 Aug 2025) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
- Just a Little More Context Bro, I Promise, and It’ll Fix Everything from Jim Nielsen’s Blog
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- c10kday from daniel.haxx.se
- Pluralistic: AI's pogo-stick grift (02 Aug 2025) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
- Why don't smart watches use USB-C to recharge? from Terence Eden’s Blog
Articles from blogs I follow around the net
Pluralistic: Become unoptimizable (20 Aug 2025)
Today's links Become unoptimizable: Twiddle or be twiddled. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Penguins v Microsoft in the EU; Chastity belts are a joke; Austerity breeds Nazis, Yale says, "Prepare for death." Upcoming…
via Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow August 20, 2025Theatre Review: Sluts With Consoles ★★★★⯪
Let's see if this post makes it through the spam filters! Sluts With Consoles is a brilliant two-hander. Girly-twirly pick-me Player One and Gothy just-one-of-the-boys Player Two are locked in mortal - and emotional - combat. They represent the duali…
via Terence Eden’s Blog August 20, 2025Embedding Wren in Hare
I’ve been on the lookout for a scripting language which can be neatly embedded into Hare programs. Perhaps the obvious candidate is Lua – but I’m not particularly enthusiastic about it. When I was evaluating the landscape of tools which are “like Lua, but no…
via Drew DeVault's blog August 20, 2025Generated by openring