aww

I'm on my way out of this sub right now due to AI posts, so feel free to disregard my salty butt, but I feel the need to say that I'm really not okay with AI generated content in this community, especially it being allowed to go up un-tagged and un-filterable (if there's a way to filter out posts on this site I wouldn't be totally against it as long as there's a rule to tag images appropriately).

I find the idea of putting an AI generated image up as the community's banner is asking for exactly the wrong kind of content. Look - real life can't compete with this stuff. Any random dude with a graphics card can Stable Diffusion the cutest and most exotic pic you've ever seen, (an approximation of) the kind of thing a photographer might capture after years of seeking out that perfect one in a million shot. The guy who made this can casually pump out several dozen like it's nothing. You want a baby red panda and a squirrel instead? They'll have it generated and posted in the time it took me to write this rant.

There's a specific community on this site for AI generated aww, and I recommend people who like these go make it active. I don't think I'm alone in saying people don't expect that content here. Most don't know what to look for and aren't zooming in to spot it, and while this form of misinformation (presenting pictures that are not real as if they were, as another AI generated post here has done by being posted without context or tagging as AI generated) is far from innately harmful, I don't think it should be allowed in this sub's rules. If that other post's comments are anything to go by, people feel cheated realizing it wasn't real.

Again, I don't entirely mind if the sub isn't strictly limited to real pictures only. Aww comes in many forms, from real life to movies to games to art. IMO, AI is far too much of an 'easy button' to get a free pass, though.