I know there’s a lot of confusion and panic around artificial intelligence (AI) right now, and as a journalist, it is my job to add to that. Happily, I’m very able to do just that, thanks to something I noticed and was deeply alarmed by: there are now people selling car posters, posters of iconic cars, the sorts of things many of us had up in our rooms as kids, car posters that helped define and refine our own personal car tastes, objects of desire, motivational goals for the future, all of that – only these posters of cars are AI-generated. Which means, terrifyingly, that they are not accurate.
I know, I know, it’s fustigating terrifying. Just think about the implications here! You buy one of these posters and give it to a child – a child! And they grow up thinking that a Honda CRX had a front end that resembled a Rover SD1.
You think I’m exaggerating? Do you? Look at this:
…and for reference here’s a Rover SD1:
See what I mean? Here’s an actual, real-world CRX, for reference:
The AI looks sorta like a CRX, but it’s very much not a CRX. Any detail you may pick – roofline, door handles, front facia, headlights, bumpers, everything – is just different enough. And the details are what make a car, especially a car that only exists on a car poster. Some poor child will stare at this, believing that’s what a CRX looks like, and will be devastated when they finally see one for real.
Here’s another:
This one is a bit more egregious: I’m pretty sure Rolls-Royce Silver Shadows don’t have that bonkers asymmetrical front indicator arrangement, and I’m pretty sure Rolls-Royce quality means they can get the damn bumper guards on straight.
They’re all like this! Some are even more fanciful and bonkers, with even fewer ties to reality, like this poster of what some delusional lump of silicon thinks a Subaru Brat looks like:
The fuck is that? That’s not what a Subaru Brat looks like! I mean, I don’t hate it; it sort of resembles what a Brat would look like if it was designed by Zagato. Just compare it to this picture of a Zagato-designed Bristol:
Seriously, the poster looks more like that than an actual 1978 Subaru Brat, as it claims. This travesty could rot the brain of some innocent child!
Here’s another:
Imagine the sad, deluded child that would grow up thinking a ’78 Seville has six headlights.
This Datsun Z car is just like a weird cartoonified version. Maybe it’d be okay for a toddler, but in a car-curious child’s room? That’s borderline abuse.
And someone explain to me what the hell is going on with these wheels?
Are those mollusks nesting in there? Starfish? What the hell is that? This is a crime.
Look! A DeLorean! One of the most famous poster cars! And while this one is clearly recognizable, it’s still AI crap, and there is simply no reason to subject anyone to this when they can have pictures of actual DeLoreans so readily! We need to take a stand!
Look at this abomination! What’s with the double door handles on the rear door? The wrong curves and window shapes and that mangled grille, those lights that look like chromed gnomes’ caps, how can they ask $40 for this mess?
That’s not a Renault 4! And what the hell are those shapes on the doors? Is anyone buying these?
Another icon, brutally misrendered by a foolish computer who has never seen a Jeep and will never see a Jeep. Because it’s not real, it doesn’t understand what matters! It doesn’t know how important details are to us car geeks!
This is a Porsche 928 as described over a bad phone connection by someone who can’t find their glasses looking at one through a filthy window, in the rain. And they’re drunk. And stupid.
I saved this one for last, because I think it may be the worst. And I wanted to include the price, so you could get really livid. They’re calling this a Saab. What. The. Fuck.
This isn’t a Saab. This isn’t anything that exists in reality. This is a monstrosity. The grille doesn’t even make sense physically. It’s a tragedy.
This should be illegal. Shitty AI car art on the internet is bad enough, but immortalized in print, hanging on a wall, where anyone can see it – that’s just too damn far.
Think of the children! Children! Growing up with one of these over their bed, thinking a Corvette has 2 3/4 headlights and a grille that looks like a row of shrimp silhouettes and half a fin on one side – it’s a horrific, terrifying thought.
We need to put a stop to this madness, pronto. I’m calling the police. Can I do it from here? Police? Is this thing working? I want to report a car-crime against CHILDREN.
Yes, I’ll hold.
SkyNet agrees with me, the CRX should have had covered headlights.
They did outside of the US.
I view it as AI tapping into the multiverse, and showing us what could have been. I wouldn’t buy any of them, but they’re fun to look at.
If this is your idea of fun then you need to be put in a reeducation camp
I instantly recognized the top picture as having lots of SAAB 96 cues. And the more I looked at it, the more it descended into Uncanny Valley, never to return.
Holy shit, the grille. What is going on with the grille.
I’m sure they are being snapped up in droves via social media ads targeting grandparents looking for gifts for the “car guy” in their life.
If you’ve been to a thrift store lately, chances are you’ll run into some AI generated slop printed on physical thing. Ah, someone got given a tshirt that says “Never Underestimate A Grandson Born in July Who Drives A Saab And Yes His Grandma Bought Him This Shirt” and decided to just instantly donate it.
Dollar Tree car calendars will probably start using these in a couple of years. I got one a while back, and they were real cars, but poorly photographed. When they get tired of recycling those photos, they’ll just grab (create?) a bunch of AI garbage images and for $1.25 nobody will care.
I found one of those a while back that cropped out the Tire Rack logo. I almost bought it just because it was so absurd, but then realized I’d be contributing to the problem.
Wow, that last one. I’m just glad my SAAB 96 is a ’67.
I remember that great model year of the Subaru Brat; it was the only pickup made in 1978 using the entire front end of a 1982 Accord.
Just like hands, AI seems to really struggle bus on wheels, even the simple designs. Not a fan of AI but that’s it’s good to learn what to watch out for at quick glance.
I’d drive the Bertone Brat.
Right? I thought, huh, there’s a cute little Italian micro-pickup. That’s adorable. Wait, it’s supposed to be a what now?
Well, okay – make the engine aircooled and that works.
You could get pretty close starting with an X1/9
Tricky, with the mid engine back there. An italicized Brat is easier to do. But in terms of appearance, yeah, this is going in that direction. Fold in a measure of Peugeot, too.
And now that there’s AI porn, think about what the next generation is going to grow up thinking about human anatomy.
You’re still watching human porn?!
I thought we all agreed to forget what we saw artists do with Pixar’s Cars. Poor Guido…
AI, jumping that IP border fence like it’s not even there.
Just remember, it’s not really artificial intelligence. It’s simulated intelligence.
Simulated intelligence when natural stupidity walks in 😛
It’s really just bad Photoshop.
It’s guided bad Photoshop.
It’s really Photoshop for no-talent buffoons who can’t figure out Photoshop but who are also okay with straight-up theft.
Now I want a Bristomino, this is very bad as someone I know has been trying to offload a knackered Beaufighter for about three years!
Tell me more…
It is certainly a 412, seems to have been a stalled project, it has been in a purpose built lean to shed for at least twelve years. Last time I saw it, 2019ish, it was looking rough.
I hate AI so much and wish we could stop pushing out this garbage.
Same.
Same.
And it’s even more frustrating talking to real human people who don’t have a problem with it.
I think the DeLorean looks pretty good. I like how it’s on a showroom floor in the middle of the desert.
They even got the front fascia color differential right.
I think it’s good they are bad. If they were good that would be bad.
Just means current underdeveloped ugly AI isn’t anything to be taken seriously by us enlightened people.
Give it a a couple of more iterations and it will be able to generate pretty good facsimiles. It won’t be able to design a good car, but it won’t be able to do a great one. Which is all these guys and ultimately the manufacturers care about.
that’s some positive camber on the Jeep’s front right tire.
I’m the type of weird guy who would prefer posters of cars that never existed anywhere.
There are real artists that do that sort of thing though
Held by the House Oversight Committee, the hearing, titled “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth,” will begin on the 13th at 11:30 a.m. ET,
Haha, I’d noticed a while back that for some reason AI models cannot make a passable render of a Renault 4. I had no idea more evolved models still had this issue. It’s so funny that the humble Quatrelle cannot be cracked by AI!
I have a feeling the models just *don’t want to* and produce crappy drawings in the hope you’ll just stop asking already?
That could totally be it haha!
these are so, so bad. They can only be sold to people who are buying gifts for their nephew/grandchild and have no idea what these things are.
Maybe they should sell a bunch of Ferrari’s and get Ferrari’s legal team involved. Better if Mickey is driving them.
The worst part is these sorts of listings are almost always using some sort of print-on-demand service, meaning it costs literally nothing to create the image and listing other than a very small amount of time, so even a single sale is deeply profitable. No doubt the print quality itself would be deeply subpar, and when the account inevitably gets shut down, 3 more will take it’s place like a lazy, computer generated Medusa.
Hydra. We’re brothers.
Are car posters still a thing?
Not since cars got so ugly.
The choice between looking at a hole in the wall or covering it with a poster of a BMW 7 Series is a hard one to make.
False choice. A 7 series IS a hole in a wall.
If you drive it fast enough
I was thinking of the BMW 4 when I wrote that, but yeah this works too!
Are we talking E23 or G70? Cuz an E23 poster would be quite pleasant.
If I had a poster of a 7 Series I would definitely put a car poster on top of it.
It looks like the Rolls is center steer?
The only way AI has ever been useful for me is when I need to find a particular picture in my gallery and so I type descriptive words in the search bar for said picture and it usually pulls it up.
AI is good at seeing things we miss (like successfully diagnosing cancer from scans at a higher rate than doctors in those fields), however we can completely shitcan the AI “creation” thing.
Exactly this, the “generative” side of AI is complete garbage, and it will pretty much always be. It only approximates what it thinks someone would want based on the data it’s given. It can’t be creative to create a new concept, a new idea, a new aesthetic, only create soulless parrots of what exists. This is what corporations are dumping obscene money, and more importantly energy and scarce resources into creating, worthless slop.
Even more unfortunately is the “AI” that does the good work like disease diagnosis and pharmaceutical research is based on machine learning algorithms and techniques that are hardly new, and are less complex and susceptible to rot like the generative AI that’s being pushed hard.
THANK YOU! I couldn’t think of the word generative for the life of me, that’s why I had to edit my post and put creation in quotations, because the generative crap doesn’t create anything, it steals and amalgamates into an art version of The Thing except shittier quality when not in monster mode.
Just today my GF typed “dog” in her phone’s photo app and the AI brought up 99% dogs and 1% chicken. We’re still not there.
I wonder what the poster child of these poor Poster Children will look like as rendered by AI?