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Friday Fun Thread for September 26, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Why do you hate fun?

"Oh no, hundreds of millions of humans will be able to express themselves artistically in ways that were never possible before, resulting in an explosion of creativity and human expression"

You don't have to scroll the Facebook newsfeed or Tiktok brainrot. Both of which were absolute slop even before ChatGPT 3.5

It's not like HBO is going anywhere. In fact, I would assume AI lowering the cost of VFX, etc will result in more prestige TV, not less, as lower costs allow for increased scale and more risk taking. Plus lower barriers to playing with art may mean more people discover/develop latent artistic talent and get into the industry.

Low quality fan fiction has been available in infinite quantities for decades, and yet there are still high quality books being published. Low quality digital art exists, and there are still excellent artists. Quality art will always rise to the top (AI will probably help you discover it).

All I can think about when people get cranky about AI art is what portrait painters in the 1800s must have sounded like sneeding over how cameras aren't real art because it requires no skill as the camera does it for you.

I am not sneeding about no skill, I am sneeding about no expression - or at the very least, significantly less expression. How many prompters are going to painstakingly describe every detail they just don't have the painting skill to put on canvas, and how many are going to go "hot woman in cyberpunk armor, in the style of studio ghibli" or whatever? At least the photographer actually has to discover/set up the shot.

How many prompters are going to painstakingly describe every detail they just don't have the painting skill to put on canvas, and how many are going to go "hot woman in cyberpunk armor, in the style of studio ghibli" or whatever?

Very few, but who cares? The person who has the hot cyberpunk studio Ghibli waifu picture is now happier than they were before. Maybe 1 in a million will be so inspired (or so good) by this that they'll get super into prompting and become a legitimately good "chimera" artist who blends AI gen and human taste to make actually great art. That's a (tiny) win for the human race as a whole.

I have no interest in seeing their stupid waifu, but I also don't go on DeviantArt or whatever so this won't effect me at all. Maybe I'll see their great art 15 years later in an art exhibition on AI digital art.

I agree this will lead to massive explosion in slop, but human-generated slop was already at functionally infinite levels prior to AI, so I'm not sure if there's a net loss here.

human-generated slop was already at functionally infinite levels prior to AI, so I'm not sure if there's a net loss here.

I expect the ratio of slop:epic to rise by at least an order of magnitude and I do consider that a loss.

That's fair