[pdabbadabba]

That seems backwards. I think GP's point that the critics on HN are themselves being uncharitable towards the site (or maybe just missed the explanation) by acting like it's a nefarious bait and switch, rather than considering the possibility that the author of the site is just trying to save on computing costs.

He or she's not lecturing anyone about economics. In fact, if we want to talk about charity, I think that accusation is about the least charitable thing I've seen so far on this thread!

[glenstein]

I'm not seeing how either of those interpretations are accurate. The page title and body text say one thing, the fine print walks it back. The balance of emphasis definitely puts forward the impression that images are being newly generated.

And the commenter most definitely was criticizing a very strawmanny 'expectation' that they pay 24/7 to serve an image generation app, which is projection of a view that wasn't expressed by anybody and is certainly not the most charitable reading of what people mean when they say the message creates a misleading impression.

For one example, a more reasonable 'expectation' would be that the language be changed to say it's a gallery of images already generated. Which is different from the uncharitable and unreasonable assertion that everyone is expecting them to pay to maintain a server.

[sofal]

The title literally says "generate abstract paintings in one click" and it is not doing that. I clicked on it expecting it to generate abstract paintings in one click, and now my disappointment is uncharitable?

[pdabbadabba]

First of all, my post was quite clearly interpreting a prior comment, not making a claim of my own about whether anyone should be disappointed.

But since we're here: the gnashing of teeth on this thread about having been "mislead" does seem to me to be a bit out of proportion. This person really does seem to have developed a cool toy that uses AI to generate convincing abstract art, but many here aren't saying about it because they object to some of the wording on the landing page!

It's their own fault, of course, for writing the page the way that they did. But still...

[glenstein]

I think people are just making a normal, perfectly correct and reasonable observation that the description was misleading, because it really was.

But the hallmark of many internet comment threads is to try and get additional mileage out the conversation by subjecting said reasonable observations to the ritual exercise of switcheroos, contrarianism, idiosyncratic distinctions and unusual interpretations. Which leads to the original wisdom being repeated, which makes it seem like it's being blown out of proportion.

But I think the simpler explanation is just that it's a correct observation and that it's not that complicated.

[pdabbadabba]

Fair enough. FWIW, when I originally weighed in, this conversation about the description being misleading was way up at the top of, and seemingly dominating, the entire thread. But I'm glad to see a bit more discussion about the actual work up top now.

[andai]

What if they stockpiled enough images so that everyone was guaranteed a fresh image? Would there be any difference then?

[acid__]

No. They could've just said something like "get a new abstract painting in one click" and used phrases like "never before seen". But as-is, their claim is just not true.

[andai]

What's the difference? For the sake of argument, what if they had an infinite number of images pre-rendered?

[acid__]

Still no, since you’re not _generating_ the image at the point of clicking.

That matters for two reasons, first because words and semantics are important, clear and correct communication is important. Second, the technology required to generate new paintings (cheaply and quickly) on demand is different from the technology required to generate a very large (infinite) number of paintings up front. They’re both interesting but for different reasons, and one shouldn’t be misrepresented as the other.

[ggggtez]

The site title claims that the user can "generate abstract paintings", but really the user can "view prerendered images".

It's misleading. I don't care if they clarify somewhere else on the site. The intention is clearly to mislead from the get go.