I will never understand thr people that think artists are going to be paid by small businesses thst are using AI, it seems as idiotic as the antipiracy laws that think everyone thst pirates is a lost sale

milk seems to be much cheaper and available in skim varieties from the big chains as opposed to smaller stores, I still mostly shop at the smaller store though because it has cheaper vegetables and better meat

Well, we here have a situation, where giving soapy baths to pigs (yes, that’s the job) at local farm may earn one 3 times the salary of entry IT job. Simply because it’s that hard to find workers these days, and don’t get me started on actual technical jobs - it’s near impossible to find a lathe machinist today.

So yeah, it all… depends… And yeah, there is one local business that I avoid, because it’s run by a guy associated with local conspiracy theorist clown. So yeah, I do little investigations to make sure I don’t give money to people who will then use it to make world a worse place.

I was really disappointed. Since I'm probably losing my job, I basically don't go anywhere any more, but went out for wife's birthday. The place we went started selling pizza and, from a distance, the small poster looked fine. I got closer and it was disgustingly unnatural (and also had "eastablished 1859" (I forget the exact date, but mid-19th-century) for the place that was like 6 years old). We decided to have dinner elsewhere.

My bad! I learned something today

Right, but asking a local business owner, like a mom and popwho run a restaurant to even know what powerpoint is... is pushing it. Expecting them to know there is a free alternative is very unlikely.

You're going to be increasingly bothered by everything going forward. Best to just let it go

You're coming up with bullshit excuses for peoples failings now.

Went to a festival recently, and nearly all pictures of food were AI, but what got me were the artists with AI signs.

Unless it's a shop that sells advertising posters I would not mind.

Unfortunately the percentage of average people who are bothered this is pretty low.

Most people just view it as a cost-saving measure, which small businesses tend to do.

I live in a rural town and 100% this is true. Gas stations, grocery stores, restaurants, they all use AI for everything.

Have you ever met someone who doesn't work on a computer all day?

Here is a link to the us census data showing that 1 in 7, or over 18 million people don't have a laptop or pc in their house. Not everyone lives and breathes by computers.

https://data.census.gov/table/ACSST5Y2024.S2801

yes, you're the only one. not a single soul has ever complained about AI before you did with this post, OP.

It's not easy to own a small business. Sometimes they just have to try whatever fits within the budget.

Go ahead and keep your money as you see fit. The vast majority of people do not donate to Lemmy or their instance.

Yes, it's stupid to make a judgement on a store based on the use of AI marketing materials. The AI hate game has officially reached poser status, people jumping on the bandwagon for clout.

How many of those people are business owners who can't design a fucking menu?

OP needs to get off their high horse and join reality.

I hate even more that I get there and they tell me "you know you can get it cheaper on Amazon" or "we no longer stock it but you can get it on Amazon". Bud, I can get every single thing in your store on Amazon and yes, it is often cheaper but I am trying to keep local stores and local jobs alive.

If I see AI posters, menus, or signage, I don’t spend money. Period.

It depends on the store. Small places run by one person, maybe I’d still go.

Big places, absolutely not. I saw an advertisement for a large law firm that was made with AI and that’s a big hell no from me.

To me, this is a valid use for AI. You can get a decently professional looking poster made inexpensively. Inexpensive is what small businesses need, and this way, they can compete with the big guys. Their only other options are to pay big bucks that they might not be able to afford or make their own, which will likely look crappy. I'm fine with it.

Our local high school uses AI to make posters for sports events and I'm cool with that too. I'd rather they use AI to make posters than to use their budget on someone to make it professionally.

Supporting a small business with an AI Poster is much better than supporting a big corporation

But it's not. Posters for a high school don't need to look professional. They need to be done by someone learning to use their skills to make cool looking posters. AI poster look fucking ass.

They got by until now.

I think the students should be making that? Isn't there an arts department? Or a student government?

employees justifiably hate their employers

and small businesses typically abuse their employees far worse than mega corps which is saying something in a world of Walmarts and Amazon's

the sweet spot is a company that's small enough to maintain a culture and the owners still have a vision but big enough they have to follow the rules pay taxes and have an hr department

of course there is no ethical consumption or production under capitalism but I didn't create this world just suffering along with everyone else

Except they're not doing this. They're using the first piece of crap that ChatGPT spits out and throwing that up, and it's clearly, obviously AI-generated, which is incredibly off-putting.

Surely, these small business owners won't throw a fit when consumers choose Amazon over their shop. After all, it's cheaper and more convenient, right?

Same here

At 18 million, I would think a fair amount. But that's just the ones who don't own a computer. Plenty of people who do don't use powerpoint.
But hey, if you can't imagine that people don't know what you know, you are pretty much the perfect representation of Americans.

Or on the X Window System: ⇧ Shift+AltGr (aka. multi key), then - - .

It's not hard! They need only take some decent pics and throw em into a document. Hell they can even put some text to remind people that the picture is authentic rather than AI trash from their competitors.

Most of them didn't. Most still don't.

Artists use technology?! Surely you must be mistaken! I thought they were all cave dwellers, frightened by electricity and the ghosts that must be haunting all machines.

Oh, wait, no. That's the Amish. We're both thinking of the Amish.

That's sad. You criticized them into submission.

They love it here. It's like a past time. Hating AI is the closest thing Lemmy has to a sports team.

Most customers are not Lemmy users. Slapping some pics into a document and just printing that out has never looked good. That was more acceptable for small businesses in the past, but now it's so cheap and easy to make it look more professional using some AI prompts. Skipping that step looks like much lower effort.

It's fine to hate AI, but when someone has a family to feed and employees to pay, it's understandable if they have to be a bit more open-minded.

There's a shop near me that has one of those sandwich board signs on the sidewalk with some sort of "fuck the billionaires, support small businesses" messaging, but for some idiotic reason, it has the faces of those billionaires on it, so every time I see it, I just get angry.

This is voting with your wallet. I don't see how this is significantly different from boycotting a company for any sort of reason, aside from the difference in scale.

The company was advertising the product in a way this person disagreed with, this person informed the company that they were not going to purchase said product for said reason, then the company seemed to value them and/or others like them enough to change their advertising.

If they generate AI slop, they're supporting the big corporations.

Edit: damn, that's a lot of AI bros trying to make themselves feel better with "nuance" and "lesser evil" arguments down in the comments. I guess if you don't see your money directly go to OpenAI, it helps you sleep at night better. Out of sight, out of mind, as they say.

Slapping some pics into a document and just printing that out has never looked good

Neither does AI slop

make it look more professional

It doesn't make it look more professional. It makes it look like they're cheapskates and assholes.

It doesn't make it look more professional. It makes it look like they're cheapskates and assholes.

They're the same picture dot jif

Who the fuck is complaining about llms with words and not pitchforks

The lemmy luddites are my favorite squadron

Recently saw an AI photobooth. No one was using it, they were taking their own pictures instead.

Why the fuck would I pay you to stick a prompt in when I could do it myself if I really wanted an AI generated picture? You may have cut some of your costs, but now your final product has no value to it.

What reality? If its AI generated it has no value.

I complain by spending all my employers tokens on memes to post in teams.