Truly Artificial

| tech | ai |

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.

Most popular posts this month

Recent Favorite Blog Posts

This is a collection of the last 8 posts that I bookmarked.

Articles from blogs I follow around the net

“You hold down Control, Shift, Alt, and click Technical Support. And boom.”

(It’s Halloween Week on Unsung, where we’re sharing scary, spooky, and creepy stories.) Imagine this: It’s 8pm on a rainy Sunday night in the ’90s, and you’re bored, so you boot up the family computer looking for something to do. But you’ve already played...

via Unsung October 24, 2026

City Escape

This last week I did an extended weekend trip with some friends to Nasu in Tochigi Prefecture. Had our fill of dairy products. Cheesecakes, yogurt, and milk. The milk tasted to me more like the milk I’d have in the US, than the more creamy that tends to be...

via Longest Voyage October 24, 2026

Manuel Moreale

Writer, web developer

via Uses This October 24, 2026

Generated by openring