I’ve been seeing rampant use of AI amongst PTCG collectors on Instagram lately, with brand logos, custom cards, fanart, etc. all affected. I think it’s a disease, especially as someone who draws habitually, to see such frivolity and disregard for the actual time and effort spent on the card art by actual artists. To think that art is something that can fabricated and dispensed by a machine at the click of a button shows their lack of understanding and respect for what largely makes the PTCG so appealing in the first place. (Not to mention the enormous ecological impact generating these images causes.) To understand and appreciate art is to simply think that what artists do is unique and what they give to the world is valuable and irreplaceable. I hope there becomes less of a disconnect in the future between the collectors that generate images and the beautifully illustrated cards they collect.
What do you think about AI usage pertaining to Pokemon collectors? Any anecdotes or other opinions are appreciated.
Yeah, not a fan of that. But much worse than art, IMO, is the proliferation of incorrect information. There are a number of (totally plausible-sounding) Pokemon falsehoods that clearly originated from AI. And if you ask an AI chat bot to verify whether the information is true, it will cite the posts from this forum with the incorrect information as verification that the information is true.
It’s really annoying when people use it as a source of truth, because it’s just not the correct way to use it. It will always give an answer that sounds like it could be true, which makes it even worse. I say this as someone who’s a big fan of AI for certain things (mainly spreadsheet and code-related), so I definitely don’t think it’s all bad. But art + the proliferation of random falsehoods are two of the worst parts of it.
Ai art has always disturbed me, I don’t understand how some people think it’s acceptable to put a prompt into chatgpt get an image back and call it art. I don’t really have anything useful that will do anything but add fuel to a fire (if just be preaching to the choir most people on e4 hate ai with a passion already), so I’ll just say that hopefully in the future people will care more for real art and real care, for now though can’t do anything to change other people’s thoughts
I just hate AI sloppa cuz it’s lazy and used as a shortcut for bums to make a quick buck sometimes. Plus, it’s praised and hyped as some sort of higher autonomous entity that is perfect and divine when really it’s just a Glorified search engine that gets it sources from biased humans and can be manipulated, just like everything else.
As someone who makes money selling their own hand drawn art, it does hurt to see how commonplace it is now.
However I do think there are levels.
The ecological impact of it can’t be underestimated and makes any use of AI for any purpose difficult to forgive.
BUT. If we disregard the larger moral implications for a second though (lol) I would say…
People using AI to make THEIR OWN logos, YouTube thumbnails, Banners etc. I don’t really care that much. It looks crap and is kinda obvious when it’s used, but also, it’s not actually like paying for it would get you a much better product tbf. Most logo creators and graphics makers do rinse and repeat 5 minute crap anyway.
People selling AI pictures as actual “Art” that they claim to have created is undeniably terrible and unforgivable. Hands down. No question.
Using AI to do voiceovers boils my piss.
Relying on it to provide any sort of correct information for anything is 100% no go as it’s just never actually right.
I wanted to make a post in the Pet peeves thread about AI use in this hobby, because it grinds my gears, too. Not just the use of AI to make “art”, but also for creation of infographic style posts. It is incredibly easy to launder your subjective, ill-informed views with the authoritative air an infographic provides, and present them as objective truths. With AI you don’t even have to create compelling designs. Taking the effort of creation away makes it rife for abuse.
The massive ecological impact and community impact that the back bone of these services bring is unbearable. AI is VERY useful in a very SMALL amount of cases.
Otherwise, people have always been able to sell low quality, low effort goods that follow trends. AI just is leaving a trail of fire behind, while before it was just slop you could ignore.
While I do hate it, there’s nothing I can do about it, it would be a fight against windmills. People on X that use it are just there for engagement farming and get their paycheck from Elon, I just block the X accounts that use it and move on.
Most people who use it have nothing to do with the Pokémon World anyway and are mostly into it for the money, they will move on when cryptobros and their friends move on. Most shops that use it will prolly not survive once things go south.
Another thing I’m worried about is how AI can be used for criminal activities: I have seen people buy phones and pretend they arrived completely broken using ai generated images and I have seen listings of used shirts/pants made with AI images (ofc the product looks perfect in the photos when it actually isn’t)
I just completely ignore AI slop these days. It’s cringe and annoying, but it’s a tool that’s out there and I don’t let it take up too much of my mental energy. Most of it is just glorified engagement bait which is why places like E4 are so important to get away from all of that!
I’d love to go back to pre-AI days, but unfortunately it’s probably here to stay. Try not to let its existence bother you too much. Real art and creativity will be cherished more than generated.
