Featured wallpapers not properly tagged

This https://whvn.cc/exj7kl wallpaper was featured by one of our mods in the community but it was not tagged properly. This art is obviously AI generated so I added the tag myself, but please check tags guys.

It is AI generated? Doesn't look AI generated to me apart from purple and low saturation.

before "ai" there was a thing called artists, which a lot of are being tossed aside as "ai" when infact someone probably did minutes, hours, or days, maybe even months, on a single picture.

There was all kinds of skill sets such as:

• Photo realistic drawing, paintings, 3D modeling, 2D drawings, and vector artists. And more
• 2D digital artists that could also do various art styles, like Pixel art, realism, and various styles unique to them or a certain time period.
• 3D artists that could do Low-poly (low 'detail') and again countless styles. Some of them approach "uncanny valley" which is now usually tossed aside as "bad ai image" but could have takes hours/days to "render" after god-knows how much time to create.

People just slapping "ai" around is annoying as heck and discredits any artist, known or not.

Now, is this image AI? I'd say no (unless you 100% know). Could be a pixel artist, or someone who discovered the Posturize tool in GIMP and similar common tools in almost any editor. Just set it to 2-4 colors, apply. BOOM! HD image now looks pixelated. AI? No, just a common algorithm that has been around decades (assuming this is the case).

Added 10 minutes after

I even did a simple reverse google for you. It's originally from a 2001 book titled The Dead Shall Inherit the Earth (amazon link) The original image is uploaded here, not color modified:

5120 x 2880205

Now, I don't think he had access to 2024+ quality of "ai" in 2001. iphones didn't even exist yet! Personal computers had 1-2ghz cpu's, people were using a mix of cd's AND floppy's still. People went outside for fun. Being on a pc all day (aka 'nerd') was an insult

tidbit said:

before "ai" there was a thing called artists, which a lot of are being tossed aside as "ai" when infact someone probably did minutes, hours, or days, maybe even months, on a single picture.

There was all kinds of skill sets such as:

• Photo realistic drawing, paintings, 3D modeling, 2D drawings, and vector artists. And more
• 2D digital artists that could also do various art styles, like Pixel art, realism, and various styles unique to them or a certain time period.
• 3D artists that could do Low-poly (low 'detail') and again countless styles. Some of them approach "uncanny valley" which is now usually tossed aside as "bad ai image" but could have takes hours/days to "render" after god-knows how much time to create.

People just slapping "ai" around is annoying as heck and discredits any artist, known or not.

Now, is this image AI? I'd say no (unless you 100% know). Could be a pixel artist, or someone who discovered the Posturize tool in GIMP and similar common tools in almost any editor. Just set it to 2-4 colors, apply. BOOM! HD image now looks pixelated. AI? No, just a common algorithm that has been around decades (assuming this is the case).

Added 10 minutes after

I even did a simple reverse google for you. It's originally from a 2001 book titled The Dead Shall Inherit the Earth (amazon link) The original image is uploaded here, not color modified:

5120 x 2880205

Now, I don't think he had access to 2024+ quality of "ai" in 2001. iphones didn't even exist yet! Personal computers had 1-2ghz cpu's, people were using a mix of cd's AND floppy's still. People went outside for fun. Being on a pc all day (aka 'nerd') was an insult

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tidbit, I admire your gumption, your passion, and your desire to spread correct information, but you're probably dead wrong my friend. Looks like in some sleuthing of my own I found that the artwork is indeed or at least MOST LIKELY ( said for legal reasons lol) indeed AI "art." The reverse image search yielded that book because it has the same title as this youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcDt6UJwfgk

More importantly, the rabbit hole leads further, showing that not only is this probably AI, but it's among many used by a music producer called CryoChamber. https://cryochamber.bandcamp.com/

Now, given this, we must also do more research because it looks like CryoChamber uses a LOT of artwork in their albums. Like, a lot. So we'll follow the trail to find the alleged "artist" of these artworks, one Simon Heath. Alas, someone was enthralled by Simon's artwork and presented their admiration on reddit, with this post....

https://old.reddit.com/r/Grimdank/comments/1bki36l/anyone_know_who_the_artist_for_this_is/

Reading the comments and looking at the images myself (I'm a graphic designer, I have some validity I swear!) we find that this is very very likely AI "art." The producer CryoChamber, sadly took the route that many others have in their pursuit of art and switched from using actually photo edited images to leaning fully into the production and utilization of AI slop. Sorry gang. We're in the hell timeline now. Get ready for this to happen a LOT more.

tl;dr - shit's AI, yo.

How is it "obviously" AI generated? The irregularities you see are part of the aesthetic. We can't label every abstract and surreal art as AI generated now...

raginmund said:

... tl;dr - shit's AI, yo.

you seem to be right, good digging. I Borrowed the book on archive.org and that image is no where in the book. I did see that artist aswell but didn't dig too deep into him

Removed from the front page, and tagged. Good detective work.

To be fair, it's not really obvious that this one is AI generated. Even though it triggered my internal AI detector back when I saw it the first time, I could not find any usual AI artifacts: the only questionable part might be teeth, but it's looks okay enough to be attributed to artistic choice.

Yeah, that's the problem with art that is ostentatiously faulty - it can look AI generated, or in this case, the other way around.