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Ask HN: Why are AI generated images so shiny/glossy?

67 points arduinomancer | 4 comments | 16 Aug 24 02:20 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source

I’ve noticed a lot of the time you can tell an image is AI generated because it has a shiny/glossy lighting look to it.

Has anyone figured out why this is the case?

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keiferski ◴[16 Aug 24 03:35 UTC] No.41262931[source]▶
It’s just the typical aesthetic model used and isn’t inherent to the tech itself. It’s very easy to make AI images in specific art styles, with the result that you can’t tell they’re not real.

This is actually something of a pet peeve of mine - people sharing AI images never use styles other than the generic shiny one, and so places like Reddit.com/r/midjourney are filled with the same exact style of images.

Edit: if you’re looking for other style inspiration ideas, this website is a great resource for Midjourney keywords: https://midlibrary.io/styles

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1. nextaccountic ◴[16 Aug 24 05:20 UTC] No.41263379[source]▶
But why is this the prevalent, default AI style across many models? Is it in the training data or is it some bias from the algorithm?

This must have some concrete answer and not just "it is the way it is"

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2. bravura ◴[16 Aug 24 05:28 UTC] No.41263418[source]▶
The same reason that after Jobs died, it was decided that iPhones should be large enough to fit in people's pockets. Because: many engineers in tech wear cargo shorts.
3. keiferski ◴[16 Aug 24 05:32 UTC] No.41263426[source]▶
That is a good question. My guess is that their training data was a mix of photorealistic images and historical paintings, and thus the outcome is the cartoony style that looks somewhat realistic but not overly so.

There’s also the possibility that they avoid being too realistic for fear of deepfake scares WRT the underlying tech. And so if you want images that look realistic without being believably “real”, you’ll get something like the default aesthetic of Midjourney.

4. raincole ◴[16 Aug 24 05:36 UTC] No.41263449[source]▶
Because it's the way it is.

"It" isn't AI here. It is human mind. As an old aritst said, monkey likes shiny things.