[huhkerrf]

> One remaining one-star review on Google reads, “Their logo is AI generated, if they can’t make the effort to create a logo they definitely won’t make the effort to cook good food.”

I'm not sure what it's called, but there has to be a name for this logical error.

[andsoitis]

It’s an example of logical fallacy, specifically a non sequitur. It actually combines a few related errors: non sequitur, hasty generalization, guilt by association, and false cause (post hoc ergo propter hoc).

The reviewer is essentially saying: “If they cut corners on X, they must cut corners on Y”, which is a common logical error in making judgments based on incomplete information.

[ragall]

A logical error is not the same thing as a practical error.

[collingreen]

Is this equivalent to defending the broken clock as right twice a day?

[ragall]

Another way to put it is that Logic deals with cause and effect situations with a correlation of 1. It's possible to have a correlation of 99%, which would be a logical error, but still a very useful bit of practical knowledge.

In this case, I would definitely agree that people that act sloppily in one aspect of business will almost always do the same in other aspects. More generally, I'd say that most classical logical fallacies are actually useful rules of thumb.

[collingreen]

What are some good examples of classical logical fallacies that are good rules of thumb in your opinion? Maybe appeal to authority and ad hominem?

Some iconic ones stick out to me as pretty bad, especially when they are so often used to exploit or mislead.

[ragall]

I'm taking these from the Wikipedia list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies.

* Appeal to authority, ad hominem: the conclusion might be true, you often have to judge a person's moral character and experience too.

* Appeal to tradition, wealth, poverty: sometimes the speaker has life experiences that justify the conclusion, but can't be explained in a brief conversation.

* Ad baculum: sometimes it's wise to stop engaging with the counterpart.

* Ad populum, to emotion: sometimes the argument is not really about the truth of a proposition(the existence of a problem, and gravity thereof), but about how politically feasible it is to do something about it.

* Correlation, not causation: correlation is evidence of causation in favour of the current best explanation. What that might be, is a matter for discussion. In day-to-day life we almost always lack the time for achieving 100% certainty.

More generally, very often people don't have time discuss a matter with treatise-level precision and diligence. We almost always have to rely on a judgement of the speaker or other circumstances, see also standards of proof in legal systems. Sometimes the true core of an argument is not really expressed overtly, whether consciously or not, and you have to figure out what the discussion is really about (very useful advice in a marriage or any close relationship).

[toraway]

On the other hand, the indignation over faulty logic I’ve seen in multiple comments already is somewhat ironic considering the hundreds of times I’ve seen the Van Halen brown M&M story invoked on HN as an example of a brilliantly simple heuristic for predicting quality.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

[kelseyfrog]

Horn Effect: causes one's perception of another to be unduly influenced by a single negative trait.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horn_effect

[aezart]

Seems valid to me. I won't read articles with model-generated header images, because it's a good indicator the rest of the text will be slop as well.

For a restaurant, a slop logo gives the impression that the owner doesn't care about the details and has no taste.

Beyond that, the use of generative models is a big moral issue for a growing number of people.

[npinsker]

Yes, this isn’t a logical error at all. If you don’t have taste in one area — actually, it’s even worse, you’re not even aware of your own lack of taste — why would I trust your taste in another area?

[linksnapzz]

The best Mexican places I've been to in CA had decor reminiscent of a big-city bus station, despite how good the food was.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Why would lack of taste in graphic design be even remotely related to lack of taste in food preparation?

It's like arguing you wouldn't trust a lawyer with a medical negligence case if they can't suture a wound.

Or you wouldn't trust a graphic designer with a restaurant logo if they can't make good scrambled eggs.

[H4lcyon]

This is assuming that the owner is also the chef, and exclusively concerned with cooking. Being a restaurateur is a multi-disciplinary job. The owner's job is literally to have good taste in all areas of the restaurant business: food, interior design, hospitality, branding and marketing, etc. No one is saying that they have to be a graphic designer. The obvious answer here was to have the good sense to hire a local college art student for like $300 to make an endearing and meaningful logo.

[dzhiurgis]

Do people even expect anything from “sports” grill?

[vvpan]

The real scarce resource in the world is legitimacy. People seem to strongly associate AI with low legitimacy. Extrapolation from low effort and inattention to details has always existed but AI legitimacy poisoning is a new and bigger phenomenon than just a logical error.

[m3047]

> there has to be a name for this logical error

Are you looking for "category confusion"? It's a conflation, but let's look at the logic. (So yes, my prior is that there is logic.)

"If they generated their logo by mumbling things at a toaster / picking something from the vending machine and then 'owning' it, how likely is it that they stole a sandwich in a grubby wrapper from a bum and are going to hand it to me and say 'I made this'?"

Edit: the article is paywalled, but a number of comments remark on the owner's sense of entitlement. So my moot is probably close for throwing blind. So then that might be the real issue, and the logo is a proxy for a perception of lack of work + mental bullying.

[rsynnott]

I mean, 'definitely' is strong, but if you're willing to cut corners on the most visible part of your business, there is a good chance you're willing to cut corners on the rest of it.

"Uses generative AI images" is a decent heuristic for "probably crap, best avoided", IME.

[estimator7292]

AI models are explicitly sold and advertised as a way to reduce labor cost to zero. If you want to reduce your cost to zero in one area (at the expense of other real people) you most likely will seek to drive costs to zero in other areas (at the expense of your customers).

I don't think that's a logical error at all. That is the explicit and overtly stated plan and promise of AI.

[nothinkjustai]

It’s not a logical error, just common sense. Eg. how you do one thing is how you do everything.

[m00x]

> how you do one thing is how you do everything.

That simply isn't true though. It's not even possible to be true. Will a neurosurgeon put as much time in their cooking/cleaning/etc as they do their surgeries? There's not enough time/energy.

[nothinkjustai]

that’s a pretty big oversimplification. it means that the way you do one thing is indicative of the type of person you are. if someone cheats on their wife, don’t trust them as a business partner. if someone puts in a lot of effort into a group project, you can probably trust them to take on responsibility outside of school as well. if someone always cuts corners on the “small stuff” like not tucking in their bedsheets all the way, not vaccuming under furniture, etc, they’re probably going to take shortcuts on other things as well. and if someone takes lazy shortcuts by generating mediocre ai slop art, they probably have a similar mentality to the food they make as well.

[dzhiurgis]

I wouldn’t trust anyone claiming they don’t take shortcuts, because it’s simply a lie.