micromobility·micromobility - Bikes, scooters, boards: Whatever floats your goat, this is micromobilityby_haha_oh_wow_
REI is Mocked Over AI Image of Handlebars Protruding From Bike Seat
https://petapixel.com/2026/06/23/cycling-brand-is-mocked-over-ai-image-of-handlebars-protruding-from-bike-seat/Open linkView original on sh.itjust.works213
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As a commercial photographer I have been waiting for pushback from consumers wanting to see actual photos of the actual product they're thinking about buying. But it seems nobody gives a shit and is happy with the slop. It's maddening. Some of the shit I've seen, technical garments with product shots that hallucinate non existent features, panels in the wrong place, its bonkers. It's not even subtle details.
I'm surprised you would say no one gives a shit when you are, in fact, responding to a post of people giving a shit.
The pushback is not mainstream. At least it's not filtered through in any meaningful way to any business decisions yet. Nobody is hiring photographers when they can just hit the slop button and be done with it. I'm also convinced some are deliberately putting this shit out there purely for engagement purposes, it creates controversy and drives clicks.
Look at the fashion band Mango. They did a high-profile AI campaign, stopped shooting real models/clothes. They caught some shade but it did not affect sales, just a short term period of controversy, which management were probably were very happy with.
It's also less people don't give a shit anymore we don't have any power to do anything about it. I'm neither doing graphic design or do I have any say over graphic design decisions. Most people don't have any influence over anything important
I worked in TV & film, and expert cinematographers are highly aware just how much your brain will fill in blanks and fix logical inconsistencies. I've done some consumer qual testing on video quality as well, and it's always amazed me how bad video needs to be before viewers are yanked out of the story due to quality or image problems. It might be this phenomenon more than people not giving a shit. Side note: It's one of the many reasons 3D video has failed to catch on multiple times; bad 3D is much more jarring and uncomfortable than bad 2D.
Photos on webshops' article pages have been bullshit way since before AI, if people didn't push back then, why should they now?
Looking at this picture for more than 10 seconds, I've already seen a dozen problems with it. This AI picture is only of those "find all the mistakes" pictures they had on the back of cereal boxes
What is that hanging under the steering bar? What's up with the chain? What's up with the brand and model names? The saddle, of course, tt the crank arms are missing, the bike has disc breaks but also time breaks, and the rear wheel rim break is floating in the air, the....
I could go on, but yeah.
This is not even an AI problem, this is a fucking lazy human being problem for not taking even 5 seconds to check the results of the image.
Management most likely questioning a budget for a “simple” photo and showing how easy it is to do it themselves.
I like to imagine the photographer letting it through as malicious compliance.
More brakes = more stopping. That's just science.
There is only one pedal.
REI has really fallen off
Union busting too.
people who use ai are ao lazy, they wont even look at the output.
Personally, I think that's the most offensive part.You save all of this time not having to actually take the pictures or edit the pictures, and then you won't take ten seconds to like, really look at what you're about to print.
i've felt this for a while now, the actual tools people use are depressing but what pisses me off is how many people are just blithely okay with obvious slop regardless of source.
Whether it's programmatically scripted 3d models with a human putting in half a joule of effort reading a voiceover, or wholesale AI-generated, it's still slop and i cannot fucking believe people think it's even remotely acceptable.
Not the most offensive part. Bad, too, but by no means the most offensive part. If you REALLY think that, you should really check your moral compass.
REI has really gone off the deep end. Insane price increases, union busting, and now slop peddling.
Yeah, I used to love that place and suggest it to everyone.
They also used to take amazing care of their customers, but they stopped doing that a while ago. I miss their old return policy and how great a place they used to be for outdoors enthusiasts. Now it's barely a step above something like Dick's.
Did private Equity buy them out recently or something? Our reputation like that is something that can be extracted as a resource until depleted, and then they can throw the husk in the trash
the pedals are not in a line, and the spokes of the wheels. djees. There are spokes coming out of spokes.
there's only one pedal, truthfully
Lmaooo the brake that floats over the top of the back wheel. Think it's supposed to look like a rim brake:
Not only is it it floating, but for some reason, it has a bungie cord/spring/ hook attaching it to a spoke? It's supposed to look like it has disk brakes, as well.
There was a typo and the engineers installed a break.
In my head I'm thinking "They probably had 10 different people count the number of fingers on each hand, and nobody looked at the bike." But the more I look it's pretty clear that AI also did the editorial review. 'cuz nobody noticed her conjoined mono-finger or her levitating right foot. Not to mention all the shit wrong with the bike, like the extra rear brake, pedals only on the right, dislocated left brake lever, wrong spoke and spoke nipple spacing, and probably a dozen other things I'm not seeing.
One of those newfangled two-way bikes? What a time to be alive.
Bicycle built for (a very uncomfortable) two.
And you have to share a crank
NSFW. and not safe for anything other than machinist surface plate smooth trails either.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkNqCJeeC48
Goes to show that the problem with AI is not only AI, it's also that most humans are too lazy to even do a cursory check on what AI just actually did.
Anyone looking at this picture for more than 2 seconds will see the mistake, yet it went in, meaning that nobody bothered to even look at it
And there in lies the problem: AI is a tool that is confidently wrong about 10-40% of the time, depending on the engine used, so you cannot trust the output, yet people just use it as the "lazyloungertool-2000" and have it do all the work without taking a second to actually do their fucking job
It's the reason why professors doing prompt injection still works, students using AI are not only too lazy to do the work, they're even too lazy to check the work output (that they themselves had to make in the first place)
You need the additional levers on the seat, when you've mounted 4 brakes.
Braking by clenching your asscheeks is only natural, after all
lol the chain
Which side is it on?! It's a mystery!
New marketing strategy: Engagement through AI hallucination rage.
And rightfully so
Not to mention her right foot hovering in the air oddly lol
Goes to show that the problem with AI is not only AI, it's also that most humans are too lazy to even do a cursory check on what AI just actually did.
Anyone looking at this picture for more than 2 seconds will see the mistake, yet it went in, meaning that nobody bothered to even look at it
And there in lies the problem: AI is a tool that is confidently wrong about 10-40% of the time, depending on the engine used, so you cannot trust the output, yet people just use it as the "lazyloungertool-2000" and have it do all the work without taking a second to actually do their fucking job
It's the reason why professors doing prompt injection still works, students using AI are not only too lazy to do the work, they're even too lazy to check the work output (that they themselves had to make in the first place)
There are studies that have shown the more someone relies on AI, the dumber and less capable they become.
Add it to the list
What losers.
petapixel on lemmy? nice. i've been following Chris and Jordan 10+ years
This article reads like an AI(?) summary of a reddit thread itself though.