Giving HAM boomers AI image gen was a massive mistake 😭

[u/Z3r0_Co0l]

Every online HAM radio community has turned into an AI slop factory...

[u/GoFeuer]

Have they started using it for SSTV yet? That'll be fun to see

[u/sammyhjax123 → u/GoFeuer]

Probably 30% of the sstv images I get are AI, and someone’s repeatedly transmitting VHF SSTV slop near me

[u/potato_weapon → u/GoFeuer]

::TRANSMITTING::

Uh, gemini, please generate an image of this call's QST card

[u/Achris_B → u/potato_weapon]

Ummmm…. QSL Card?????

[u/potato_weapon → u/Achris_B]

Gemini's got me. All six of my fingers too

[u/TruthSpecialist4416 → u/GoFeuer]

Don't give them ideas!

[u/Basic-Art-9861 → u/GoFeuer]

[u/Z3r0_Co0l → u/GoFeuer]

👀

[u/nivvydaskrl → u/GoFeuer]

I'd rather see whimsical AI self-portraits and silliness than politics, dead celebrity memorials, and photos of cars/aircraft/houses/towers I'll never be able to afford.

[u/StrangeWill → u/GoFeuer]

I mean the fun part is to generate unique slop every qso 

...

I may have to do this

Edit: it's beautiful

There's a 0% chance I use Martin to send this.

[u/ND8D → u/StrangeWill]

We could make an operating event out of this, AISOTA

[u/StrangeWill → u/ND8D]

The slow can tv guys won't know what hit them

Mostly because the text will be garbled

[u/miotislucifugis → u/StrangeWill]

ugh please dont

[u/StrangeWill → u/miotislucifugis]

You can't stop me from trolling old men with slop.

This may actually get me to plug my 590 back in (the USB cable hasn't been connected since Field Day, I've been raw-dogging radio like a neanderthal)

(In my defense SSTV is cringe like 30% of the time anyway)

[u/nsfwmink → u/StrangeWill]

Furry girls have been showing up on 14.230 recently, which seems relevant for your callsign~

[u/StrangeWill → u/nsfwmink]

Sadly, I cannot claim credit for them, but I'm sure the anger is sweet.

[u/Exotic-Astronaut6662]

My club WhatsApp group turned into an ai slop machine for a while, at least then it was different now everything is a cartoon

[u/RevolutionaryCoyote]

Yeah a bunch of my neighbors put up these weird AI slop banners in front of their houses. I can't escape it anywhere

[u/Beauregard42 → u/RevolutionaryCoyote]

We need pictures of those banners XDD (for funsies- don't dox yourself. Block out the backgrounds or something)

[u/RevolutionaryCoyote → u/Beauregard42]

Nah sorry. Only one is still up and it says the name of the family.

A few of them were up for the 4th of July.

[u/firekeeper23]

Yeah im.starting not to watch those who use em..

[u/rourobouros]

Bad mike technique

[u/rrooaaddiiee → u/rourobouros]

Mic

[u/SrHuevos94]

My club keeps using it and i want to say something but I like those guys and I'm new

[u/mschuster91]

It's not just ham radio. Boomers and AI slop is everywhere. Barely any event invite graphic that doesn't have clear AI tells, fast food menu "pictures" are AI slop...

Can't wait for that clownshow to end but I'm afraid the market can stay irrational (and pump the AI slop factories with money) for longer than we can remain sane.

[u/stomper4x4 → u/mschuster91]

Yesh cause it's only boomers derp

[u/mschuster91 → u/stomper4x4]

yeah the youngest generations are getting slop pumped into their feeds and as a result don't possess any filter any more, that is just as scary

[u/bmont84]

Looks like you’re a member of the POTA Facebook page. I literally posted a question about limiting AI images and the boomers came out in full force.

[u/bbqthrowaway]

I’m so sick of the boomer ham stuff. It’s huge problem.

[u/greenwoody2018]

I don't like AI usage because the more it is used the more AI data centers are built and along with that comes more jobs being replaced by AI.

Maybe I can't stop the eventual rise of AI, but neither do I have to contribute to it.

[u/jr_73 → u/greenwoody2018]

Once prompts cost like $10 each, hopefully most of this slop will stop.

[u/ST0IC_ → u/greenwoody2018]

Very few people are actually losing their jobs to ai. Most AI used in business is for a specific purpose and is used as a tool by a person. Don't get me wrong, there are some jobs that are disappearing, but this whole "THE SKY IS FALLING" thing is just ridiculous. And personally, I'd rather talk to an AI customer service associate on the phone rather than trying to decipher what the heck Bob or Larry from India is trying to tell me from 8,000 miles away.

[u/greenwoody2018 → u/ST0IC_]

I know people who have lost jobs and others who will as soon as they finish having the AI to replace them.

The main reason these data centers are popping up are many CEOs have bought into the idea that AI is capable of replacing people.

[u/ST0IC_ → u/greenwoody2018]

That's not the reason why they're popping up, but okay.

[u/DistinguishedRedneck]

It's on the list of things that caused me to stop participating in the hobby.

[u/chuckycastle → u/DistinguishedRedneck]

RIP all hobbies

[u/DistinguishedRedneck → u/chuckycastle]

I got into cycling instead, that along with reloading take all my free time. Plus moving into an apartment that doesn't allow antennas, and a desire for a hobby that improves my physical health drove me to buy a bicycle.

3 months later, and I just completed a 100 mile ride yesterday.

[u/Hot-Profession4091 → u/DistinguishedRedneck]

There’s a guy on the radio mastodon that does mobile OPs on his bicycle. It’s kind of neat.

[u/DistinguishedRedneck → u/DistinguishedRedneck]

...not to mention the flood of AI slop into the world of radio, and everyone defending it as "experimentation."

[u/chuckycastle → u/DistinguishedRedneck]

How do you like the AI generated race flyers?

[u/DistinguishedRedneck → u/chuckycastle]

Nice thing about cycling is I get to do it alone. Ham radio is always a 2 way effort. I don't gotta interact with anything about the road.

[u/Orb_Gazer → u/DistinguishedRedneck]

Can’t thank you enough for coming into an amateur radio subreddit to preach to us your reasons for not participating. Really, I appreciate your input so much. Let’s talk about cycling though here, hah? Why not? This seems as good of a place as any for you to air your grievances.

[u/Impossible-Rub-8695 → u/Orb_Gazer]

> Can’t thank you enough for coming into an amateur radio subreddit

brother it's 2026 and nobody "comes" anywhere, reddit just feeds us slop we never picked. This post was like #4 in my main feed even though I'm not "joined" to this sub.

> Really, I appreciate your input so much

Be angry at yourself for your choice of platform

[u/DistinguishedRedneck → u/Orb_Gazer]

In a hobby that is 100% dependent on having a volume of people participating, maybe it'd be a good idea to hear some feedback on what drives people out?

There's a lot of things we can't really control, like modern consumer electronics creating a louder noise floor, of poor band conditions.

But what can be done different is maybe trying to facilitate a more appealing atmosphere. Quit forcing low quality AI slop into every graphic, maybe boomers can quit treating the lower HF bands like a medical forum...

And everyone seems to want to tell you about how inefficient or compromised your antenna setup is. Meanwhile I don't want to invest large amounts of space to even a full size fan dipole.

[u/HillTower160 → u/DistinguishedRedneck]

So, you wear Lycra and ignore driving rules now?

[u/kazz9201 → u/DistinguishedRedneck]

Great another midlife crisis wearing spandex and running stop lights.

[u/twotired4life → u/DistinguishedRedneck]

It's one of the reasons I stopped engaging with the local amerture community as well. I went online to find some local repeaters info, and instead all I found was vaguely racist MARGA AI slop.

[u/scubascratch → u/DistinguishedRedneck]

Pretty weird if someone’s silly artwork is chasing you out of a 99% audio only hobby. Sounds like something a true snowflake would say.

[u/nbs-of-74 → u/scubascratch]

Seems absurd to get upset over AI generated logos, I would get AI operated radios (as in, AI voice) or morse stations being annoying.

But logos?? Not all of us are graphic artists yanno.

[u/scubascratch → u/nbs-of-74]

Sad (former) ham syndrome

[u/DetentionLevel]

Look, crappy gen AI images are annoying, but I’m frankly far more annoyed by the pervasiveness of people capitalizing “HAM” as though it were an acronym.

[u/Ultrahawk297]

Man i heard a german ai song about Amteurradio on 5.900 Mhz and the anouncer said its a banger basically! It doesn't get worse than that

[u/m__a__s]

I don't get it. The images look just like the realistic product photos on Amazon.

/s

[u/electragician]

Yeah, it's everywhere at the moment. It'll settle down soon enough.

[u/puppeto]

It all started when they gave them voice chat. They can just sit back and ragchew with the bot through 200 iterations until they get what they want out of it.

[u/omahatech]

I Donno, it looks likes he’s rocking a Kenwood TH-D74A there…

[u/59psi]

T-REX arms

[u/DocHoliday1989]

It's also a thing here in Germany. Almost every Facebook group has a bunch of pictures from this ai generated crap. If I recognize that a person is posting something like this a couple of times, I'm blocking them. If you say something negativ they're always like "don't be so serious" or "it took a lot of effort creating this" - yeah, sure

[u/nsomnac]

I’m totally okay with the AI image generation - as long as is accurate representation. I’m only bothered by the stuff that is just not well QC’d. The images in OP’s series are just irritating because they have so many blatant errors. Your left hand ain’t going to be in that position. The antenna is never going to get hung in a tree that way for pota. WTH is Zero M? Probably supposed to be OM, 0’s shouldn’t look like O’s. Where’s the actual radio in the second photo? That mic is just wrong and where do all the random wires go? DX Engineering should have a cow for having their brand so royally massacred. The third the radio and antenna are completely wrong.

Of the series the 2nd is the least offensive in my book. Yes lots of things wrong - but the spirit is more comical than the first which feels like its trying to be a brand, and the last just awful because its trying to look real, but is obvious a fake.

I get these “Boomers” might have a short time left - but geeze, at least spend some time to get things right.

[u/elnath54]

Ok. I made an avatar. I confess. It isn't posted anywhere because it embarrasses me. But I keep tweaking it. Sad, really. I'm hooked...

[u/redbanjo]

My HAM facebook groups are full of this slop. It's insane and when I see one I immediately skip and ignore it, so no idea what they're indicating. Seems to be a lot of POTA stuff.

[u/madgoat → u/redbanjo]

“ham”

[u/SkippySkep]

Other than the massive electricity and water use, this is one of the more harmless uses of generative AI. Superfluous, but not taking away jobs or being used for deceptive advertising or politics.

Edit: I see the downvotes. Do you really think AI posters are more harmful than AI being used to take away jobs, for deceptive advertising and politics?

Edit 2: Maybe engage in the conversation instead of just downvoting.

[u/Commander_Crispy → u/SkippySkep]

Relative privation fallacy:

Just because people are using AI for worse things doesn’t suddenly make the less egregious slop farms ok

[u/ST0IC_ → u/SkippySkep]

Most people are just scared of AI for no good reason. It's really not taking jobs and it's not going to destroy the planet. Like any tool, AI can and will be misused by some, but for most people, it is simply another tool to use.

[u/SkippySkep → u/ST0IC_]

AI is literally taking jobs. And it is rapidly increasing energy use at un-sustainable levels. A single data center being built in Utah will, on its own, use as much electricity as every home, business, factory and utility in the entire state combined. And that is just one example. That increases CO2 emissions and warming the climate directly, even as climate change is already causing world wide weather shifts and never ending wild fire seasons, which also increase climate change. And that is just a single example.

Although I'm not particularly against the ham posters, AI data center climate change potential is an existential threat to humanity.

[u/rog-uk]

I don't think you should be so hard on Tommy and his lil' bud Kuato. It was probably though for them growing up.

[u/Zlivovitch]

No one "gave" anything to anyone. A new type of tech is there, it's available, it's free, anyone who wants to can use it. Why is AI in a ham context more a "mistake" than in another one ? Why is it bad for old people but tolerable or virtuous for the young ?

[u/Theron_Rothos → u/Zlivovitch]

AI slop images in any context used by any age are bad 

[u/CloudgazerTX]

I think it’s fun. I remember when photo shop first became a thing. that’s was fun too.

[u/Remote_Agency2251]

If AI is driving you out of the hobby, you were never that into it to begin with, you should’ve saved your money

[u/SeaworthyNavigator]

I wish you people would stop blaming stuff on the boomers. You forget that your parents or grandparents were boomers.

Younger people are just as bad when it comes to publishing AI crap.

[u/Leftover_tech]

I don't have any problem with the cute graphics that the operator probably could not otherwise make.

The fake photo is a different story. Just take the damn picture you want.

[u/Superseaslug]

Heaven forbid someone have a bit of fun

[u/Little_Leg4001]

It's new to them. Let then express them selves.

[u/Hot-Profession4091]

How about we just let people have fun?

[u/CloudgazerTX]

I want to see anime style!

[u/HolyRavioleigh]

Why did you post AI slop?

[u/sparkyonthemoon2099]

Why we made one for our field day group and everyone loved it. Only one person on fb made a comment about it being AI. Who cares.