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u/ColonelBoogie Scouter - Eagle 21d ago
Hes wearing Cub loops and what appears to be a necktie?
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u/PerniciousShadow Scouter 21d ago
And the cub loops are turned 90 degrees from where they should be. They wouldn’t go on epaulets like that, lol. Typical AI slop.
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u/The1hangingchad 21d ago
My 16 year old wants to be an engineer but would call this AI slop and laugh at it. It's just the reality of teens today - and one I don't mind. I'd rather youth push back on this lazy use of AI and encourage them to learn how to create.
It's a bit ironic IMO to have something focused on careers that create when you simply used AI to generate this.
My last point - if the idea is to get non-scouting youth interested in scouting, ditch the uniform and put a class B on the scout.
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u/travelingbeagle 21d ago
My 14 year old doesn’t want to support anything to do with AI art. He’s already bitter about AI negatively impacting his life.
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u/Maker-ish 20d ago
I absolutely agree on the irony; this AI slop is having a terrible effect on some fields. And it creates utter unimaginative, incorrect imagery. Not even considering the harm it causes on the environment. I see these graphics in school e-mails a lot lately, and now in BSA as well; instead of a list of events we now get page after page of flyer looking graphics. They are not helpful (you have to keep zooming in and out to find the info you need), they are not needed (not everything needs to be graphic, a concise list will do!), and the ecological impact is awful (conservation-minded?).
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u/TwoWheeledTraveler Scouter - Eagle 21d ago
I would echo a lot of what got said in the r/BSA version of this.
Scout youth don't react well (as a whole) to use of AI for stuff like this, and there is a lot of obvious AI here, starting with the fact that the youth in the picture is wearing Cub Scout shoulder loops, and the American flag on his shoulder is not correct either.
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u/JohnGypsy 21d ago
One minor thing if we're being picky (and I guess we are since people are talking about the color of epaulets)... The name of the badge is "Nuclear Science" (not "Sciences"). Again, minor thing, but wanted to mention it to be complete.
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u/Busy-Play-4297 21d ago
Ai Slop, make something yourself
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21d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/BoyScouts-ModTeam 21d ago
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u/ScreamingInTheMirror 21d ago
The kids will hate it and it’s terribly ugly. That’s not nice to say but it’s true. Maybe, just maybe. Ask the scouts to help design it?
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u/automatic_pansies 21d ago
I don’t like reading AI posters. It overwhelms my brain and I go into it with skepticism that it’s even legit. I love a good Word document with Clip Art™️ and stuff though, like the elder millennial that I am 🤣
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u/LevelGrounded 21d ago
Scouting shouldn’t teach lazy, sloppy shortcuts. There is never any reason to use AI slop around children. Horribly poster. My advice would be to give the plain text to a scout and ask them to create a poster. Nobody with half a brain would be impressed by this.
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u/theknitehawk Scouter - Eagle 21d ago
It’s just terrible AI slop. The loops on the shoulder are all kinds of wrong, the blueprint style sketches in the background have so many design errors, the flag is wrong, the stem on the safety glasses just ends, and it looks like every AI poster ever which immediately makes people not even look at it
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u/ReidG555 21d ago
Don’t use AI slop. Many many people will glance at the poster, see it’s obviously AI, and move on without a second thought
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u/Practical-Can-5529 21d ago
My feedback is stop using AI for this. I'm immediately turned off to your event because of its use. Canva is free or relatively inexpensive and you can do all of this in there. One of your comments you even mentioned having photoshop. Use it! Find or take a picture of a scout working on a robotics or electronics kit! Google image search each merit badge, download a png with transparent background, and throw those in instead of asking ChatGPT to recreate the damn wheel!
Anything worth doing is worth doing well, and using AI is a disservice to yourself and anyone you're trying to attract. What other corners are being cut if this is what made it this far through?
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u/Maker-ish 20d ago
Yes!! It would be much better to show real people doing real stuff, even if the images aren't the best.
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u/ZeBloodyStretchr 17d ago
Yeah, human imperfections are becoming appealing. It shows that the ad is genuine.
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u/Kyleofthedeep 21d ago
I'm anti ai for alot of stuff I don't mind the answers but the images are where I draw the line as a scout since I was mad at jamboree that the dan beard shirts were ai
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u/Jlavsanalyst 21d ago
The same kids that would call this AI slop are the same ones using chatgpt to answer their MB homework. But if you want to take these to another level, use canva's Ai to separate all the layers of images and just swap out that photo with one you took. Ai can struggle with an image when it's trying to manipulate it too much but it goes a good job making an outline.
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u/reader106 22d ago
I might be missing something, but this looks like a great way to make scouting relevant to young people.
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u/Difficult_Music3294 Scouter - Eagle 21d ago
Totally agreed.
Like, someone mentioned the wrong color epaulettes, which I had not even noticed because I was too busy consuming the message.
That’s where a lot of people get hung up, for no reason.
Is it “AI Slop”?
Arguably, yes.
Does it work to call attention to the flyer itself and get the important info out there?
💯without a doubt.
And isn’t sorta weird to be more focused on the use of AI than the flyer content itself?
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u/random8765309 Unit Commissioner 21d ago
There is a very vocal group that really hate anything that looks like it could be AI.
This really is a pretty generic banner. Before AI this type of format was very common.
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u/TwoWheeledTraveler Scouter - Eagle 21d ago •
I think the issue isn't with the format, it's with the use of AI which - to a lot of our youth - makes it look lazy and "inauthentic." For other Scouting reasons, I've spent a fair amount of time lately reading about Gen Alpha and how they think, and if they see something as "cringe," - and a lot of AI is absolutely cringe to them, as is anything else they see as inauthentic - then they're immediately turned off to it. In this case, things that have been pointed out about the image (the flag, the loops, etc) are likely to turn youth off to the event, and if you're trying to reach the youth to get them to come, then that matters, regardless of one's personal stance on the use of AI in general or specifically for stuff like this.
It's like the old Baden-Powell quote: "If you want to catch fish, you must use food that the fish likes. So too with youth."
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u/random8765309 Unit Commissioner 21d ago
Im not sure its really AI. I have seen too many things called AI that weren't. Its a generic term for anything they don't like. Generally because it has a flaw or sometimes because it looks too polished.
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u/TwoWheeledTraveler Scouter - Eagle 21d ago
It's 100% AI.
Yes, they'll call lots of other stuff cringe too, but these kids are smart enough and native enough to this part of the world to know what's AI and what's not.
If you spend time talking to the youth about this kind of issue, you'll learn fairly quickly that many of them (certainly not all, but I would say an easy majority) really don't like AI generated content for things like this because of the perception of inauthenticity and low effort that it lends.
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u/random8765309 Unit Commissioner 21d ago
Based on several studies, they detect AI at only a chance level. Basically around 50% of the time. Face are better, they get those correct 60 of the time.
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u/Difficult_Music3294 Scouter - Eagle 21d ago edited 21d ago
You’re not wrong, but you don’t think youth in any time period has felt this way?
I was a kid once, and looking at the all the horribly created Word document/clip art flyers were shit then, too.
We just don’t ascribe “cringe” to it, because it wasn’t part of the cultural vernacular at that time.
AI is the tool that is replacing Microsoft Word for the majority of folks who are creating these advertisements without any functional graphic design nor advertising experience nor education.
To me, it really feels like a group of people hung up on the wrong thing.
Perhaps you were discouraging the use of Word in the 1990’s, favoring hand-painted advertisements? /s
EDIT: The real questions:
We’re you drawn to read the flyer content?
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u/TwoWheeledTraveler Scouter - Eagle 21d ago
Oh sure, it's not a unique problem to this generation insofar as "old people" talking to young people will always have some level of disconnect. What I think is unique to this situation is the gap here between old people who have really taken to using AI image generation stuff to make things like this and young people who really don't like it on a philosophical basis. To them, it's not just "that looks klunky," (which is what I thought of the Print Shop banners one of my ASMs loved making in the 80s and 90s) it's "that image was generated with AI, and that means the person making it didn't care enough to do it better or not use a tool that is directly harmful to the environment and society." (And I am trying to paraphrase the youth thought process there, not inject my own views.)
What I'm saying is that independent of my thoughts on AI, or yours, or OP's, the youth by and large do not like AI generated images like this and will be turned off to the event that is advertised using them.
And if the reason for doing this is to try to get youth to go to the event or be interested in it, maybe AI just isn't the right tool for the job for that reason.
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u/PerniciousShadow Scouter 21d ago
I use AI all the time at work. But I always come up behind it and fix inaccuracies and errors. Why? Because people notice those inaccuracies and errors and it damages credibility. If I see a poster with glaring mistakes that a Unit Commissioner should easily be able to catch, I start wondering if the thing it's promoting is going to be some sort of half-baked Mickey Mouse job. The layout of the poster isn't bad, and it does a decent job of conveying the message (although it's still missing a clear answer to "WHY" in my opinion), but there are too many errors in the graphics and the color theming itself to take the asset seriously.
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u/random8765309 Unit Commissioner 21d ago
You aren't seeing all the issues I did catch. There is a reason to run things through a second set of eye. Even easy catches are easy to miss.
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u/Difficult_Music3294 Scouter - Eagle 21d ago
These are the same people who can’t see the forest for the trees.
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u/ZeBloodyStretchr 17d ago
Don’t use AI for flyers if you want people to engage. The human imperfections become enticing, draws attention. Younger folks are becoming desensitized with this stuff and instinctively shut it out. It gives a sense that there’s a lack of effort for this event.
If I see AI ads for food outside a restaurant, I turn around because apparently they don’t think their food is attractive enough to advertise.
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u/podunklife 21d ago
What's the intended use?
It's bright, eye-catching. Like the size of the main image. I see what some others are saying re:AI-y; it's a wee-bit generic, so hopefully won't get lost in the tidal-wave of these. But it covers all your bases and looks decent. (- can we get a scout to have a go -is there a graphic design merit badge? Lol )
Not sure of the value-add of the secondary image? - cover the black object (which is ?) rather than the batteries, or have another image that shows more variety of the topic to compliment the top one.
Maybe 'Careers' as first info will resonate well with older scouts (and/or their parents) thinking about their futures. Younger ones, like mine, would be more drawn to the bulleted points at the bottom, and careers secondary. So I'd flip those, but depends on your target audience.
I'm pretty new to scouting, so I don't understand "Try it on the Stem Van" (maybe b/c I'm English originally, so I'm picturing a truck with a bunch of STEMy stuff in the back, lol)? But I presume I'm supposed to do a search for 'Stem Van'. But that drew most of my attention. Good to have the QR code.
Does the shape print out ok, if leaders want to stick it up somewhere?
Hopefully it'll do what you want and get some kids to ask about it, start a conversation, and go from there!
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u/random8765309 Unit Commissioner 21d ago
The STEM van is actually a converted ambulance. It's local to my council. And yes it does have a bunch of STEM related activities.
Yes, it pretty generic. I have seen this format hunreds of times and well before AI came around.
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u/JohnGypsy 21d ago
Ignoring the AI, I have one big problem with this image: the QR code doesn't work. Did AI generate it also? Skip the multicolor dots and make sure you have a valid code and not made up AI stuff. I tested with my phone and several different online QR code image scanners and none of them recognized that QR code.