Brands that have been discovered using AI continue to encounter consumer backlash. Recently, Guess provoked a storm of criticism online for using an AI-generated model in a Vogue advertisement.
Even when AI tools don’t make obvious mistakes, some artists reveal that their clients still prefer a human touch to set themselves apart from the expanding amount of AI-created content online.
Todd Van Linda, an illustrator and comic artist from Florida, asserts that AI-generated art is quite recognizable. This is due to either the distinctive inconsistencies in details or the plastic-like quality that characterizes AI images across different styles.
“I can look at a piece and not only identify it as AI, but I can also tell you the descriptor used to create it,” Van Linda explained. “Especially for independent authors, they want nothing to do with it because it’s so predictable and apparent. It’s akin to grabbing a bargain book cover from Walmart.”
Authors approach him because they understand that AI-created art cannot encapsulate the very specific “vibe” of their unique story. Often, clients provide him with a vague idea of their vision, leaving Van Linda to interpret their desires and craft a piece that perfectly captures the emotions they wish to convey through their art.
Van Linda also mentioned receiving requests to “fix” AI-generated art, but he declines those tasks now. He has learned that such clients are generally reluctant to compensate him fairly for his effort.
“There would be more work involved in fixing those images than there would be in starting from a clean sheet of paper and doing it right, because what they have is a mismatched collection of generalities that really don’t follow what they’re trying to do,” he said. “But they’re trying to wedge the square peg into the round hole because they don’t want to spend any more money.”
The low pay from clients who have already cheaped out on AI tools has affected gig workers across industries, including more technical ones like coding. For India-based web and app developer Harsh Kumar, many of his clients say they had already invested much of their budget in “vibe coding” tools that couldn’t deliver the results they wanted.
But others, he said, are realizing that shelling out for a human developer is worth the headaches saved from trying to get an AI assistant to fix its own “crappy code.” Kumar said his clients often bring him vibe-coded websites or apps that resulted in unstable or wholly unusable systems.
His projects have included fixing an AI-powered support chatbot that gave customers inaccurate answers — and sometimes leaked sensitive system details due to poor safety measures — and rebuilding an AI content recommendation system that frequently crashed, gave irrelevant recommendations and exposed sensitive data.
“AI may increase productivity, but it can’t fully replace humans,” Kumar said. “I’m still confident that humans will be required for long-term projects. At the end of the day, humans were the ones who developed AI.”
