If they vibe coded the app, sure, be skeptical. But there's no indication they did, just that they wanted images for their website, and they're a software engineer and not a graphics designer.
I put about as much weight in the origin of those graphics as which website editor they use. If they were advertising themselves as a web designer, sure, maybe that's relevant. That's not what they're doing here though.
If this site were their product, maybe that'd matter. But why does that matter in this context?
No more than wearing off-the-rack clothes shows a lack of respect for and understanding of the work tailors actually do.
No more than wearing factory-woven cloth shows a lack of respect for and understanding of the work weavers actually do.
No more than heating a can of soup shows a lack of respect for and understanding of the work chefs de cuisine actually do.
In my cases as well as yours, one certainly can choose to spend extra for the luxury of the best to meet the want, but it is also fine to spend less and meet the need. In my cases as well as yours, judging someone for the value he assigns to a luxury is gauche.
If I cannot afford a graphic designer, then my choices are:
- AI slop
- MS Paint graphics (or really poorly made stuff in Inkscape)
- stealing someone else's icons and graphics off of Google Images (or trying to find stuff with an open license)
- not including graphics
In this case, probably not! The text on the website and the author’s comments here and his background all suggest that he writes high-quality cryptosystems. But the AI art by itself is still evidence pointing to lower quality.
Many people find using LLM images tacky and garish. It screams low-effort slop, to a significant number of people. When it's so easy to find great usable images on wikipedia, for example, it's hard to know why a sophisticated technical person would take the risk involved in this choice.
I'd a quick look there at the images on the wp page for chains, and the one for knots - some really excellent images. One doesn't need a PhD in web design to pull it off, either.
Open Source and Transparent This project isn't hiding anything. It's completely open source, meaning the entire codebase is available for anyone to inspect, audit, and verify. This level of transparency is a strong counter to potential trustworthiness issues, as the community can collectively ensure its integrity.
White Paper Included Beyond just the code, there's a detailed white paper that outlines the underlying methodology, technical specifications, and goals of the project. This provides a deep dive into how it works, offering a robust explanation that stands apart from any superficial impressions given by images.
The focus here seems to be on transparency and verifiable information, which the open-source nature and accompanying white paper strongly support.
I'm excited to try this out personally! Thanks for building this maxtaco
You 100% didn’t vibe code this, but the AI images give that sort of impression.
That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without consideration, per Hitchens’s Razor. I don’t think research exists about a relation between AI generated images and quality of the project using them, so your complaint seems like motivated reasoning because you believe that generated images are a sign of poor quality or judgement in an area that would reflect on other aspects of the project. The fact that our perceptions are colored in this way is not accurate, and is gamed by marketers. Criticism of the promotional aspects of a project like this which isn’t commercial or customer facing is not very convincing on your part and deserves being called out.