a tiny suggestion about the website
Hello!! I absolutely love the manulization website and I'm not exaggerating when I say I use it almost everyday and I really appreciate the work of Roman and Vika, there is however one thing that bugs me (and, knowing the current climate around ai, I'm probably not the only one) - the ai-generated graphics on the zoo pages :( There are some ethical and environmental concerns about the use of ai which you might want to take into considerations but frankly they just don't look really good. AI simply cannot do justice to the beauty of our beloved creatures and sadly on the internet you can find more and more ai-generated images people claim to be actual photos of the manuls 😿. I'm obviously not expecting them to be replaced with some sort of professional graphics but a simple photo of manul's enclosure at the zoo or just one of the manuls living there would've been, in my opinion, a thousand times better. I obviously don't mean this as any kind of hate or offence, as i said i really love the website, just leaving a tiny suggestion about a thing that could've made it even better 😸
Comments 6
I like these pictures; for example, the ones from the Leningrad and Moscow zoos are really cool
It’s a matter of taste and of one’s attitude toward AI... Personally, I see AI as a tool. So that’s probably why I take it more lightly.
But these zoo pictures amuse me. They say more than photos of enclosures do. If only it were possible to find artists who would draw sketches... No, that’s not quite right. There are plenty of artists. But they won’t work for free. So is it really worth fussing over it when AI has already made the work easier and saved time and nerves?
I really like the pictures from the zoo. They convey the atmosphere of the place, as well as the architecture or nature that is characteristic of the city/country.
For example, the picture from the Yerevan Zoo is simply a treasure trove of Armenian culture, customs, flora, etc.
I don’t like AI-generated art either, but the level of detail in the illustrations here on the site is wonderful! The carefully chosen details make me smile and delight me 😀❤️
Niko, thank you very much for your message!
This is a very important topic, and it has come up many times already.
Our position is this: we would be very happy if the zoo pictures were drawn by some artist in a single style that would speak to our hearts and convey the atmosphere of the places where the zoos are located.
Right now the site has almost 140 zoos, and there will be more added. 140 illustrations is a lot!
Even if the artist draws 1 a day, that is 5 months of work. All the time, Manulization is funded exclusively by me and Vika and generates no income. We won’t be able to pay an illustrator for the illustrations right now. I hope that will change in the near future, but for now that’s how it is :(
We have received several offers to draw pictures for the zoos, but unfortunately they did not go beyond discussions.
In general, we are a little wary of volunteer work. There are several reasons for that. First of all... how do you tell a person who spent several days and drew an illustration that we don’t like it? If we commission an illustration for money and give a precise brief, then we have the moral right to demand the result we expected. But if the person owes us nothing? How can we influence the quality and style? That is a big question... Secondly, how do we make sure that a volunteer artist draws all the illustrations and is ready to draw them on demand every time we want to add a new zoo? After all, they may simply get tired of it after 10–20 pictures? They may have other things to do, and they won’t have time...
To sum up... we would very much like the site to have great illustrations for the zoos, drawn by a human artist in a style we like, and with the idea we had in mind, but for now we don’t see how to make that happen.
Manulizationverified_filled ,
That makes total sense! I think if one is choosing between AI art and human art, one should always choose human, but in this case it's more like choosing between AI art and no art at all given current circumstances, which is definitely understandable.
(Also some of the AI image are really funny. Hemker Park and Zoo makes me laugh every time.)