My AI art generator kept giving people six fingers and I lost a client over it

Last month I was working on a batch of product images for a local coffee shop in Portland. Their roast labels needed some stylized hands holding cups, and I figured I'd save time by using an AI tool to rough out the poses. First few tries gave everyone six fingers, no big deal, I thought. But after fixing it manually three times, I sent the final batch and the owner spotted a thumb on the wrong side of a palm in one shot. She pulled the whole order. Now I'm back to sketching everything from scratch. Has anyone else run into weird anatomy glitches that cost you work?

3 comments

3 Comments

thompson.tyler14d ago

Six fingers, no big deal" - I had an AI once give a portrait subject three EYES and I didn't notice until after I'd printed twenty flyers for a band's show. They still got booked but I had to pay for the reprint out of my own pocket.

thomas86214d ago

That three eyed flyer story hurts just thinking about it. AI is sneakily bad at basic human anatomy but somehow great at tricking our brains into missing the weird stuff until it's too late. Really sucks you had to eat the reprint cost though, band should have chipped in since they got booked anyway. Still beats the old days when you'd just misalign a CMYK registration and print 50 posters with a green floating head instead of a face.

betty12614d ago

The "green floating head" thing is hilarious though, I bet that band still has one of those posters framed somewhere lol. But honestly I think the real issue nobody talks about is how AI tools are training us to ignore our own gut feelings. Like you said, our brains miss the weird stuff until it's too late, but that's partly because we're getting used to seeing slightly off images everywhere now. It's like we're lowering our own bar for what looks normal because AI stuff floods the market and we just accept it. That scares me more than the three eyed flyers honestly, because it means we're losing trust in our own eyes and judgment. The band should have definitely helped with the reprint though, that's just common decency.