this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2026
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@greyscale@lemmy.sdf.org @NichEherVielleicht@feddit.org
@memes@lemmy.world
Sorry to ask but... why's it "AI slop"? What exactly are the signs and tells? To me, it looks like a normal vectorized drawing, the kind of drawing one could expect from Krita and Inkscape. I mean, even the drawing strokes seem sharp and clear (differently from the blurry kind of outline often seen in "AI slop").
All of this doesn't necessarily mean it's AI but since each character is unique (and not simply copy-pasted) it would take more time to create them, so these choices have to be deliberately.
I agree, it doesn't resemble typical AI generated content in appearance. It does in form though. It's like the most "I've seen pieces of a train, but I don't understand what a train looks like or how it works" drawing I've ever seen. If the flame is at the back, how would that work with the entire rest of the engine (the cylinder at the front)? Why do the linkages not make sense.
If this is made by an autistic train fan, this is incredibly wrong. If it's made by a person joking about them, it's slightly more forgivable (but still, I don't think anyone wouldn't understand the Steam comes from the front).
You're right, the perfect edges and perfect circles and all of that make me think it's not AI slop at first, but even the least careful person I don't think would make this many stupid mistakes. They're mistakes you'd expect for something that knows that the shape is statistically expected from trains, but it doesn't have any understanding of why.
I'm reminded of this classic: Velocipedia/
People were asked to draw a bicycle, and a lot of them were not functional.
Often in a fun way.
Yeah, I know of that, and I'm aware it happens. Even still, those designs have the concept right. I don't see how anyone draws the smoke stack on the front of the engine but then, for some reason, draws the Steam coming out the rear. If they didn't draw it at all then I think it's reasonable. I just don't see how you get to the point of the OP.
It's like drawing a bike and drawing the pedals, but the chain connect the handlebars to the wheel or something. It's just not something someone's going to do. (On that page, literally everyone who included a chain connected it to the pedals. It maybe do weird things, but that basic thing is consistently correct, because you don't draw pedals and not understand that that's where the chain connects.) They'll draw something that doesn't function, because the don't understand how a bike works maybe, but there are some basic things everyone knows.
That's true, but I just don't get what human would put the smoke stack at the back
@SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml @memes@lemmy.world
As I mentioned in my other reply to zerodawn, when it comes to the unusual placement of the engine at the locomotive's tail, maybe it's a surreal (albeit it would make some sense physically speaking) way to get a traction similar to rear-traction vehicles, so the engine would be pushing forwards, rather than pulling forwards.
The label inside said panel kind of answers this: autistic individuals, who think in creative and often unexpected (unexpected in the eyes of neurotypical individuals) ways. Perhaps this is why I particularly didn't find the locomotive physics that strange: I'm myself neurodivergent, so it's natural for me to think of the unexpected.
The reason why you didn't think it strange is because you don't know how one works, because there's multiple things which don't make sense otherwise.
The drive wheels are not the ones at the back but the ones with the connecting rods and piston rods (the pistons provide the drive force). The rods are placed in a way which would prevent the wheels turning if connected in those positions and would typically be placed on the largest wheels of the locomotive (i.e. that big wheel should be the drive wheel if it's going to be there).
The smoke should be coming from the very front of the locomotive as the output from the firebox needs to run through the boiler (most of the front of the machine) in order to generate the steam needed to actually drive the locomotive. Having it come from the back makes no sense unless the whole boiler arrangement is also reversed and it isn't.
@gnu@lemmy.zip @memes@lemmy.world
To repeat a comment I just made, adapted to the things you mentioned in your reply:
As I said during other replies on this nested thread, i visualized this drawing as some sort of old VW Beetle: trunk at the front of the car, relatively small engine at the rear, rear traction. That's why, at least to me, the locomotive principles clicked in my mind.
Which I particularly understood as a small engine from a rear-traction locomotive.. I mean, a combustion engine doesn't need to be big, just see how old VW Beetles work with engines quite small compared to other cars.
But, okay, let's say the drawing is "all wrong" or physically dubious. Why it "must be AI"? Do you people happen to have seen those Rube-Goldberg art pieces? Did Rube Goldberg use AI for his artworks?
Last but not the least, oh my Goddess! I can't help but quote the meme: "boy, that escalated quickly". It's a meme, fellows, it's meant to be a meme! Still we're all fighting over details of a meme! I simply asked someone why they labelled this comics "AI slop", then it developed into me trying to explain how my neurodivergent mind is visualizing the locomotive as some kind of VW Beetle shaped as a steam locomotive...
I should disassemble some old VW Beetle someday and make myself a locomotive quite similar to the one in the comics, just for you people to see what exactly I was visualizing when I was stubbornly explaining my perception of an Internet meme. 😅
Of course one could make a train engine in many forms. But the classical shape of the sort depicted in the drawing here is an old steam engine. It's not a carriage with and engine in it. The big cylinder is the steam tank. And there was a fire under it that exhausted though the big chimney structure at the top front. The pressure from the steam pushed big pistons that connected to a set of large wheels mechanically connected with a big drive bar. You can create a new design with a modern combustion engine, or an electric motor - and these of course already exist - in fact it's hard to find working old steam engine designs these days. But an electric or diesel engine car wouldn't have the same classic shape of an old steam engine. They just look like a big box. So having this design but then putting the smoke coming out the back simple makes no sense.
Of course a human can make such errors too, but in order to get the shape right, one would need to understand the function, or they'd copy another picture and get the details right, including the smoke stack.
AI LLMs have a word base interface and they're more susceptible to getting some things perfect and others nonsensical - like all those pictures that look right but when when you look at the details, like the number of finger, there are classic AI errors. That's why this train is being tagged as AI. It's not 100% for sure, but it looks that way if you understand the structure of that kind of train.
The wheel linkages have to be horizontal - think about it, they need to stay the same length as both wheels rotate.
Also, why is smoke coming from the coal storage and not the engine?
@perviouslyiner@lemmy.world @memes@lemmy.world
In this regard, yeah... Other angles would lead to asymmetrical traction and potential breaking of the rod due to the forces involved.
What if it's not meant to be the coal storage, while the thing we're implying to be "the engine" at the front were, in fact, the chest/trunk? I mean, if we look at the old VW Beetle cars, the trunk is at the front, the engine is at the rear, and the engine is fairly small. It's so small and simple it's even possible to reuse a beetle's engine to build things... Perhaps even a rear-traction locomotive!
The first few things that jump out to me are, the smoke isn't coming out of the front stack, instead it's coming out of a second stack thats more in the style of an older steam tractor. The second stack and subsequent second smaller steam engine are where a tender box should be. Worst of all is the illustration of the connecting rods/tie rods, i don't think even a lazy human who'd gone so far as to make the whole image would get that sloppy drawing them so non uniform.
Even if you didn't know much about steam locomotives spending more than 5 second absorbing and processing the contents of the image would tell you the smoke is in the wrong spot and the rods that make it go look bad. That is assuming you've seen a steam locomotive, which i imagine is the bulk of anyone with access to the internet.
The large wheel next to the cabin is also messed up. It means the cabin must be smaller than the track width, since the cabin is squized inbetween the wheels. But in reality the cabin is always wider then the wheel base.
@zerodawn@leaf.dance @memes@lemmy.world
Oh, right, I can see it... 🤔
However, what if the very fact that it's meant to be a meme about autistic individuals, the kind of highly creative and intelligent person who'd build quite unexpected things in quite unexpected ways (and I mean this positively, especially because I'm (likely) AuDHD myself) would be the reason why the steam engine is "reversed" (at the tail of the locomotive, rather than at the front; the first thing I can think of is rear-traction vs front-traction vehicles, with the former ones pushing forwards rather than pulling forwards)?
I mean, at least in my mind, it would even make physical sense to have a locomotive whose engine sits on the rear end, pulling the whole mass forwards. And the connecting rods, wouldn't it be some sort of transmission mechanism so there'd be traction at the front wheels (akin to a four-wheel traction, 4x4 vehicle)? It would make physical sense as well, having the traction shared between the rear wheels and the wheel axis sitting right under the trunk, no?
But, yeah, the fact that the load is sitting in the front, thus potentially obstructing the locomotive operator's view... Maybe I'm being too gentle with the meme, maybe you people are right and it's indeed AI-generated, I dunno. It's still funny, nonetheless.
The “load”? You mean the boiler, and that has to be in front to produce the draught to increase the heat in the firebox. But there’s no smoke coming out of the smokebox, but a weird little cube thing on the back is making some sort of cloud.
The driving wheels need to be under the weight to provide traction. Water and steel is heavier than an empty box so they need to be under the boiler not at the back.
@ohulancutash@feddit.uk
No, I really meant the "load", as in a loaded vehicle's trunk.
As I said during other replies on this nested thread, i visualized this drawing as some sort of old VW Beetle: trunk at the front of the car, relatively small engine at the rear, rear traction. That's why, at least to me, the locomotive principles clicked in my mind.
Which I particularly understood as a small engine from a rear-traction locomotive.. I mean, a combustion engine doesn't need to be big, just see how old VW Beetles work with engines quite small compared to other cars.
Which is the reason behind the rear traction of a VW Beetle: the engine is at the rear side.
But, okay, let's say the drawing is "all wrong" or physically dubious. Why it "must be AI"? Do you people happen to have seen those Rube-Goldberg art pieces? Did Rube Goldberg use AI for his artworks?
Last but not the least, oh my Goddess! I can't help but quote the meme: "boy, that escalated quickly". It's a meme, fellows, it's meant to be a meme! Still we're all fighting over details of a meme! I simply asked someone why they labelled this comics "AI slop", then it developed into me trying to explain how my neurodivergent mind is visualizing the locomotive as some kind of VW Beetle shaped as a steam locomotive...
I should disassemble some old VW Beetle someday and make myself a locomotive quite similar to the one in the comics, just for you people to see what exactly I was visualizing when I was stubbornly explaining my perception of an Internet meme. 😅
Given VW never made a steam powered rail variant of the Beetle it’s a bit moot. The principles of road and rail are very different. This is why it’s slop.
"AI slop" or just "slop" has already broadened its definition to mean anything you don't like or agree with. Think of it as the modern "r/thathappened" or "photoshopped".
If you can't see how mechanically the drawing is nonsense then I worry for the future.
The wheels are nonsense, the rods are nonsense, it has a pizza oven in the back and the smoke is coming from the wrong end.
@greyscale@lemmy.sdf.org @Rhaedas@fedia.io @memes@lemmy.world
"Sir, this is a meme's". Lol
Now, being serious, it doesn't seemed "nonsensical" to me because I'm neurodivergent myself, while the panel in question is labeled "autistic", so it refers to an autistic individual approaching the problem of going forward in manners that can seem very unexpected in the eyes of neurotypical individuals. The rear-mounted engine? Think of old vehicles with engine at the rear. It physically makes sense, pushing forwards rather than pulling...
"Pizza oven in the back", it's clearly a drawing not meant to be over detailed, hence the lack of mechanical minutiae which would better distinguish it from a... "pizza oven".
But, again, maybe you people are right and this is AI-generated, who knows.. I'm just a systematic rando looking at an atypical mechanism and thinking of ways it'd work IRL.
This dog is barking from its arsehole and has 6 legs.
That's what it looks like at a glance.