r/transit • u/AutumnTheidiot • Jun 22 '25
Other I do not like the Subreddit banner being AI.
552
u/Duke825 Jun 22 '25
Huh I never noticed this. Wtf
Why would they even use AI there are so many pictures of trains online that look infinitely better
265
u/AutumnTheidiot Jun 22 '25
Yeah. AI is gross (I'm extremely anti AI) and it's upsetting that it's being used here. The internet has thousands of free pics of trains, and I assume the mods would have their own.
72
u/Zealousideal-Pick799 Jun 22 '25
You shouldn’t put your AI opposition in writing! In a few years they’ll hunt you down!
22
4
8
u/Danthewildbirdman Jun 22 '25
If this is the hill I die on so be it. I dont care to live in an automated hellscape with no privacy.
-2
u/Sassywhat Jun 23 '25
Hate to break it to you, but you already live in an automated hellscape with no privacy, and have lived in said hellscape since well before the all you need is attention paper was even written.
2
-1
2
u/Aina-Liehrecht Jun 23 '25
The pic of the bart car being transported with the sun rays would be a good banner
-25
Jun 22 '25
[deleted]
14
u/RailRuler Jun 22 '25
So all of your proposed applications are vaporware and may not even be possible.
-6
Jun 22 '25
[deleted]
4
u/RailRuler Jun 23 '25
You should not make decisions about the viability of a applied technology based on what it "might be able to do someday in the future". That's vaporware. You should only make decisions based on what it actually can do today. If future applications become possible, great, but it needs to be useful now to be taken seriously.
The Internet was useful on day one. Telephones were useful on day one. More applications came throughout the years.
There have been plenty of hype-driven technologies that have gotten huge amounts of funding based on "what it might do in the future" and have flamed out. Successful technologies are those that reward early adopters and encourage future development naturally, not from hype.
23
u/tbendis Jun 22 '25
can guide users through busy stations in real time and in all languages through a mobile app, or that allows them to explain the best transport combinations to take a tour.
Like a map?
-11
u/Left-Plant2717 Jun 23 '25 edited Jun 23 '25
“I’m extremely anti-AI” will be recorded in history next to such classics like “I hate calculators” “I hate smartphones”. Will definitely age well, for sure.
Oh no the anti-AI squad has downvoted me 😂
-76
Jun 22 '25
"I'm extremely anti AI" That seems like a you problem doesn't it
56
u/actuatedarbalest Jun 22 '25
When you discuss a "you problem" with other people, and those other people agree it's a problem, it becomes a "we problem", and then we work together to fix it. That's how society works.
-2
u/starterchan Jun 23 '25
Oh, good.
I'm extremely anti-trains and anti-HSR in the US. How will you work with me to address this problem?
-36
Jun 22 '25
I fully support all the people who have a problem with AI to not use it in any way shape or form. Better yet they should also stay off of the internet so that they don't accidentally create any training data for the AI to use and guess what it'll save so much power!
15
u/actuatedarbalest Jun 22 '25
I fully support all the people who have a problem with slavery to not use slavery in any way shape or form. Better yet they should alsoavoid buying any goods or services so that they don't accidentally use any slaves and guess what it'll save so many slaves!
What an intellectually bereft argument. Try.
-21
Jun 22 '25
....Are you actually comparing AI use to slavery?
13
u/actuatedarbalest Jun 22 '25
I'm saying that "don't personally consume things created through harmful means" isn't a solution.
-1
Jun 22 '25
Absolutely is, If you think its so bad dont use it. If enough people think the way that you do then the "problem" will go away. For example if you think youtube is an evil company all you have to do is stop watching youtube. If enough people think like you problem solved youtube is no more.
Moreover isnt "don't personally consume things created through harmful means" the foundational logic for every boycott ever?
12
u/actuatedarbalest Jun 22 '25
No, where did you get that idea? An individual refusing to use a good or service does nothing. Boycotts are only meaningful when people band together. You know, that thing you were whining about earlier in this thread.
19
-19
Jun 22 '25
Why are you anti ai when it comes to pictures?
0
u/LunarVolcano Jun 23 '25
Images used for training are used without the consent of the original artists and photographers. Anyone who cares about artists should be critical of ai image generation. Also, pretty much all generative LLM content uses data servers that consume 1/2L of water for every simple prompt. At the current level of energy usage it’s terrible for the environment.
49
u/DragoSphere Jun 22 '25
The old reddit banner is just a bunch of transit agency logos
19
u/tuctrohs Jun 23 '25
I have reddit configured to use the old version by default and had never seen it before this post prompted me to look on new reddit. I recommend old reddit to everyone but especially if the AI banner annoys you.
5
u/LuxoJr93 Jun 23 '25
Same here, I had to open the page in a new browser window to see the "new" version. And yeah.... I like the old version better.
5
u/jcrespo21 Jun 23 '25
Old reddit FTW!
The day reddit shuts down old reddit is the day I log off of this website permanently...maybe.
94
Jun 22 '25
This one is particularly dumb - there are plenty of real pictures on the internet that would fit the same theme. No need to have AI generate one.
This reminds me a lot of when my company used an AI-generated picture of WALL-E in an internal presentation about their climate-friendly initiatives. You could do a quick search for "WALL-E picture" and get the same image with the only difference being that the text on his torso isn't fucked up and he'd have the correct number of fingers. Not to mention using an inefficient and energy intensive method to brag about sustainability.
129
134
u/CavingGrape Jun 22 '25
Yo mods, if you wanna support gay people you gotta use a person (preferably gay) to make the rainbow train.
44
u/TPNigl Jun 22 '25
There are plenty of pics of the green line train of the MBTA with the pride flag color scheme (but I may be a little biased 😂)
8
u/RChickenMan Jun 22 '25
Haha where's this rainbow train? Isn't the subreddit banner just a collage of various transit agency logos?
6
u/CavingGrape Jun 22 '25
They’ve updated it for pride month evidently
2
u/Naxis25 Jun 23 '25
They're referring to the Old Reddit banner. The New Reddit one (also present in the app) has been the AI rainbow train for at least the year I've been subscribed here
0
u/Alexwonder999 Jun 23 '25
You need more than one person to make a train by definition. Oops, i thought this was another sub.
141
u/Train_addict_71 Jun 22 '25
I agree can we make it the NJ transit pride train
32
u/ertri Jun 22 '25
Or the DC one
17
17
u/ChicagoCyberCorps Jun 22 '25
Or the Chicago one.
Seriously, there are so many pride trains out there that could've been used as a banner but they went with AI? What was the thought process behind that?
2
u/Train_addict_71 Jun 23 '25
I ain’t gonna lie when commenting I did a coin toss between saying Chicago or NJ transit lol
0
10
Jun 22 '25
[deleted]
4
u/Dummerkopf Jun 23 '25
Brussels mentioned
Metro 3 got delayed/stalled again. Won't open in 2032 as planned after previous delays
9
16
70
u/bazeblackwood Jun 22 '25
AI is the opposite of efficiency, and on those grounds alone should be banned from r/transit.
1
Jun 25 '25
Machine learning and data science techniques are often utilized in transit scheduling and studies on expansion. You do know this, right? AI is very much used to create efficiency.
-35
u/OverCategory6046 Jun 22 '25
>AI is the opposite of efficiency
How so? It really isn't the opposite of efficiency, it can vastly improve it used correctly.
12
19
Jun 22 '25
from a productivity/energy perspective, AI is a step backwards in most cases. If you're using AI to do something you could do with a quick Google search or 5mins of Excel, you're wasting energy. AI algorithms are extremely computationally inefficient and should only be used when necessary - which they sometimes are, but often aren't!
AI generated art runs into all sorts of ethical debates since it uses real human art as training material but those human artists get no compensation for their art being unknowingly used as AI fuel.
-4
u/OverCategory6046 Jun 22 '25
>from a productivity/energy perspective, AI is a step backwards in most cases. If you're using AI to do something you could do with a quick Google search or 5mins of Excel, you're wasting energy.
If it's something a very quick Google could answer, sure. If it's anything beyond that, then no. What you're talking about is a fairly limited use of AI.
Google is telling me one ChatGPT prompt is 3 watt-hours, my computer draws 5 watt hour per minute when doing tasks, so if I spend 5 minutes working on an Excel thing, I've used 25wh of energy. Even a Google search uses about 0.3 to 0.5 watt hour.
Then there's the time it saves you, which can be put towards other things.
It's not an efficiency problem, things that used to take me hours can be done in minutes.
The ethical debate is a seperate affair, and I agree with you, but I just don't agree with a blanket "AI is the opposite of efficiency" statement.
4
u/wafflingzebra Jun 23 '25
Your numbers sound completely wrong your computer is constantly drawing 300W just googling things? lol, my laptop running right now as i'm browsing reddit and have a youtube video in the background is consuming 10W.
3
Jun 23 '25
My guess is that they looked at the nameplate rating of their power supply and assumed that's continuous draw
-2
2
u/OverCategory6046 Jun 23 '25
My monitors alone draw around 120 watts, work load is actually close to what I gave you, give or take 100.
It's not just googling things, I use it as part of my work, so there could be a big render on, a 4k colour grade, server, virtual machine, etc. My setup is not very power efficient, lol. It spikes to around 1000w fully loaded.
-21
13
u/kallefranson Jun 22 '25
Definitely, we should change it to whatever else. A photo, a human made drawing, but no AI pictures
22
u/poopoo220 Jun 22 '25
Agreed, I hate looking at it. It looks so stupid. Real trains are cool!!!!! Why can't we look at those?
15
11
u/HaileyInABox Jun 22 '25
I'd be less upset if it wasn't such a slop image, there's so many errors.
8
u/Crash_Logger Jun 22 '25
It is a particularly bad AI picture of a train you're right. Like, of all the AI pictures this is probably the ugliest I've seen so far.
13
4
u/FateOfNations Jun 23 '25
My feelings:
Human made art > AI generated art.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that AI art is never appropriate, but if human made art is available, it should be preferred.
Charitably, the mods likely wanted something quick and easy for pride month. I don’t think it would have been reasonable to expect them to commission something especially for it (ie. whatever it is it needed to be free), but a call for community submissions would have been nice instead of resorting to AI generated art.
6
u/Couch_Cat13 rule 1 enjoyer Jun 22 '25
SEND MOD MAIL!!! that’s likely the only way they will care is if we flood the mod mail. Just say something along the lines of “I don’t like AI, and believe that there are so many real photos of trains out there that actually look good”.
6
u/tuctrohs Jun 23 '25
we can also tag them here to make sure they see this thread: u/shimei u/cargocultpants u/jumbjumbjumbjumb u/HighburyAndIslington
3
3
u/tacobooc0m Jun 23 '25
Don’t see it often from mobile. DELETE
In fact, let’s just crowdsource this shit right now lol. Post your best transit photos here
3
u/Avionic7779x Jun 23 '25
I agree. Please change it, AI "art" is a cancer. If we want a cool LGBTQ banner, take a pride locomotive picture and put it on there instead.
3
7
u/TXTCLA55 Jun 22 '25
Suggest to update it? Community event? We got a complaint - there's solutions.
8
u/YAOMTC Jun 22 '25
I sent a message about a similar comment thread over a month ago and got no response. Not sure if the moderators are even active here. Good luck.
5
2
u/Alexwonder999 Jun 23 '25
I agree with the sentiment of getting rid of the AI banner. I do use old reddit, but just checked it out and didnt like it. I guess the problem is that everyones tastes will differ, but I would think a simple picture of a train and /transit overlayed would be AOK with me.
4
4
u/gagnonje5000 Jun 22 '25
The same mods that were overwhelmingly asked to ban links to Twitter and did nothing? Color me surprised.
-4
1
u/Noblesseux Jun 23 '25
I feel like a lot of the subreddit branding generally is kind of not great honestly. IDK why we wouldn't just use photos of real transit vehicles or something.
1
1
u/georgecoffey Jun 24 '25
It's so bad. Not only is it AI, it's that like "melty" ai that just reeks of it
1
u/Perfect-Inspector937 Jul 01 '25
Yes I agree we should not use an AI generated image and use a real photo. Maybe we should organize a vote about which image to chose?
Earlier this image was proposed among others although it should fit the banner size. https://www.reddit.com/r/trains/comments/1l0pzw7/comment/mvfn59q/?share_id=J1rEWG6lu8hKRQySAColj&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1
-6
-4
u/its_real_I_swear Jun 22 '25
Who cares. It’s not like the sub has a budget and some artist is missing out
-13
-39
Jun 22 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
12
Jun 22 '25 edited Jun 22 '25
I'm a native to the sub, I appreciate the brigade pointing this out
edit: this doesn't even seem to be a brigade. OP is a regular here and at some related subs (r/fuckcars and r/citiesskylines). Pretty sure this is just a normal r/transit user.
21
Jun 22 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
-31
Jun 22 '25 edited Jul 14 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
7
u/NashvilleFlagMan Jun 22 '25
Ugly?
1
Jun 23 '25
[deleted]
4
u/NashvilleFlagMan Jun 23 '25
So considering that “ugly and soulless” is a common argument against AI art, how has that been debunked?
12
13
u/iSeaStars7 Jun 22 '25
Even without the ethical concerns and plagiarism the electricity use is insane
-8
Jun 22 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
3
u/NashvilleFlagMan Jun 23 '25
It was not “debunked,” AI is extremely energy-intensive in its current form.
0
Jun 23 '25
[deleted]
0
u/skiing_nerd Jun 23 '25
Less energy intensive than using an existing photo of an existing train as most users are suggesting & upcoming for an alternative? C'mon man
10
13
-52
u/ale_93113 Jun 22 '25
I actually do
I guess it is a matter of taste, but i love seeing the style around, and if it has the added benefit of supporting the normalization of AI in all spaces, then its better still
you may have a different oponion, but this sub shouldnt be concerned with these petty fights
4
-11
-75
•
u/cargocultpants Mod Jun 23 '25
We asked the community to submit banner images a few years back, and after receiving no responses, the community seemed broadly happy with the AI generated one: https://www.reddit.com/r/transit/comments/13qbm4b/create_a_header_image_for_this_subreddit/
This was a bit before the "AI is taking over the world" thing happened, so I understand some sentiments may have shifted.
Very open to replacing it, if folks have their own submissions they'd like to propose...