this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2026

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GenZedong

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This image was made with AI (lemmygrad.ml)

submitted 19 hours ago by amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml to c/genzedong@lemmygrad.ml

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The one used in this thread: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/12973939

Mind you, I didn't set out to deceive anyone. It was more of a "why call attention to it" thing. It's probably the only time I've posted anything AI where I didn't explicitly call attention to it as AI. But I've learned in the times I did do that here that some person or other would be upset, pretty much no matter what the content was of what I posted.

I figured, one of the primary complaints about AI generated images, is essentially that they look like they're trying to look professional but make basic errors. Which I think is a fair criticism. So I thought, what if I use stick figures. That's closer to meme level of illustration and expectations are lower for it, so if some basic mistakes exist, that's par for the course.

I did write the text itself as rhetoric and fictional conversation, but I didn't draw any of the image, nor did I place the text in the image. It was received extremely well for a lemmygrad post. I'm sure it is easily the most upvoted post I've ever made. I don't know what made it work so well, maybe the commonness of issues with landlords, but I can only guess as the responses didn't tell me much about the why.

One person did say "Ai stickfigures?" which surprised me a bit. I didn't think it looked overtly AI genned. But I asked them "why do you ask?" because I wanted to be sure whether it was confrontational or sincere interest in where it came from. They never responded, so I'm not sure.

But anyway, the fact that it was AI somehow didn't prevent it from seemingly resonating with people. I never would have drawn any such image on my own. I could make an attempt, but it would probably look like a child's fridge drawing and I would have especially struggled with the vividness of the facial expressions, which was where I sought to do the contrast between the feigned victimhood followed by literal mustache twirling villain. Caricature, but gets the point across.

Given how I've seen some react on here, I can't help but think it would have been a shitshow if I'd called attention to it being AI generated or if it had been drawn in such a way that it looked stereotypically "AI". Instead, as of posting this, it totaled at 111 upvotes and 0 downvotes.

It's always hard to tell the impact things have in a virtual forum, but with the limited metrics I have to go by, it went really well. And I didn't draw a pixel of it. This paints a picture for me that the issue with AI generated content in these spaces is not when it's AI generated but when people believe that it is. But people can believe something is even when it isn't. Or in this case, likely assume it isn't when it is. Maybe I'm wrong and the 100+ people who upvoted thought "AI" and upvoted anyway, but given how things usually go here, I doubt it.

I hope no one takes this as trickery or something. Having seen more recent angst on here relating to AI, I thought calling attention to this is an opportunity to make a point. When I went to make that image, it was mainly about seeing what kind of effective agitprop I could make with AI. Maybe knowing this explicitly will inspire some people to think more about how they can use it too, beyond the hated stereotypes, with thoughtfulness of design put into it. I am still determined to aid in strategic thought and practice, no matter how much mud is slung. Liberation demands it of me.

You're right to be mad about a lot of things. Help me help you be mad at the right people in a way that will change the world for the better.

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[–] RedLink@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 9 hours ago* (3 children)

Its pretty obviously AI. But I'm an artist for a living so I don't know how much my expertise plays into that. But I saw it and didn't care to start beef about it. I didn't send it to anyone.

In my experience people who are still pro AI at this point are pretty difficult to have a conversation with about it. Both Comrades and non comrades. I usually compare AI to microwave food because yeah...its food but its not great and people usually prefer handmade. Even if we take it as a tool for the proletariat, the problem is that AI as it exists is in the hands of the bourgeois, as such its used to their advantage and not ours. We ultimately can't create LLM's to the same extent without a massive amount of organizing that is going to require a government structure. For now, AI is mostly used as a tool by bourgeois to obfuscate truth and reality which are enemies to Marxists. Even if I can tell images that are AI, I wouldn't be able to tell other uses, and it'd be foolish to assume nobody would believe such images to be reality. Even without knowledge of programming I can see the applications, mods, and games I've tried that have AI are extremely buggy.

I see AI as more of an enemy of the Marxist movement than a tool. The working class loathes AI because of its low quality and attempts to use it to destabilize their lives. Both in mass producing evidence for lies and in replacing their jobs and livelihoods. Even If AI is not able to do so, bourgeois are stuck in idealism. Not to mention a good chunk of the infrastructure for AI is for surveilling against resistance to the state.

In any case, the point is. Most people aren't going to interface with your AI content in the first place. Much like people who see an AI restaurant sign and identify it aren't going inside in the first place, let alone informing of the creator/user of the AI content. I'm sure you could make agitation propaganda with it that will sell people unaffected by or unable to spot AI. But many people have a negative association with AI and associate it with bourgeois violence. I saw the image, and I did not share it for its low quality and clear AI content. It actually swayed me, a Marxist, to not share the propaganda.

I promise you, the worst most shitty drawn stick figure image will be better, on account of effecting both parties. Those who are fine with AI and those who are not. Most people actually really like poorly created material. It's somehow both ironic and genuine.

I bolded messages for ease of reading.

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[–] m532@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 1 hour ago

I’m an artist for a living

https://redsails.org/artisanal-intelligence/

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[–] amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml [S] 4 points 4 hours ago (1 child)

This is all well and good except for the fact that it did really well as an upvoted image. That goes for bobs_guns response too. It seems to me that you were mistaken to not try sharing it given how well it did. This stubborn insistence that AI can't be helpful because it's being used for bad a lot in the face of a data point that it can work well just boggles my mind, frankly. Guns are a perfect example of something that is "associated with bourgeois violence". Very viscerally. Not in the abstract, not by having to explain how exactly they get used in a way that can be called violent. Guns are made to kill, no vaguery about it. Yet even then. Even then successful revolutionaries in history have not gone "guns are evil and tainted and we must be pacifist and work to get guns banned to solve the problems of the world."

If something being associated with the oppressor means we can't use it, then liberation is impossible. Or we can decide that how something gets used is more important than what it is and stop pretending liberation is about being a pure soul in a fallen world.

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[–] shakiiin@lemmygrad.ml 1 point 44 minutes ago

There is still a lot of room for survivorship bias in this singular statistical analysis. You'd need to know how many people even saw it, and compare to many other cases to find a trend. I think u are jumping the gun, so to speak.

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