Aug 21

AI impact on the collectible car hobby

As AI creeps deeper into our society, changing careers and impacting lives, I am curious how others here feel about its impact on this hobby?

The proliferation of images that are fake, the bias instilled into the product from initial coding, the speed at possibly getting answers to complex questions (and the unknown accuracy of that quick response)…….   The impact seems to be “finding its way” as it is applied in different ways to the car hobby.   Like all technology, it is a tool, for better or worse.

I’ve recently been playing around with Google Gemini to help visualize paint options on a car I own.   It has limitations, but it is a nice way to very quickly take a look and consider different colors.

What do you find annoying and helpful regarding AI and our esteemed hobby?

Aug 21, 2026

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Replies (16)

· Aug 21

Nobody hates AI generated photos more than me. But there are some good things about it that will help the hobby. Specifically asking technical questions and getting answers.

One thing it is fantastic for is documentation. I created a "owner's companion" for the eight cylinder Stearns knight consisting of the owners manual clean up, with all the factory service bulletins. This was maybe 6 hours worth of work today. It cost me 80 bucks to get it printed hardcover and expedited to the shop.

· Aug 21

The fake images and the use of AI in making art are crimes against humanity. Unfortunately though, it’s a necessary evil when it comes to searches and sifting through unimaginable amounts of data. We’re bombarded with so much information in the coarse of a day, we simply can’t process it all because our brains weren’t designed for that. I often find that I have a hard time slowing my brain down enough to even read a magazine article. So we’ve kind of created a situation where we need help to deal with it.

Of coarse, then there’s the fact that it no longer seems like the village is looking for its idiot, but rather the one who isn’t. So maybe we need all the help we can get.

· Aug 21

I see pluses and minuses. @alsancle's example is a good one of a plus. Those miserable fake images are an example of the bad ones.

The other think that makes my skin crawl is the AI generated posts. So easy to spot.

· Aug 21

AI learns from what has been produced by human artists who have not been compensated for it.
AI generated art can suck eggs.
The good part is. Once everything becomes watered down, AI slop. The real thing will become more valuable.

· Aug 21

I hope you are right Shawn. I am constantly blocking people who post AI images. But it is easy for me to identify a car as AI. Not sure everyone can do that.

· Aug 21

AI will have a positive impact on cars, but I don't know about the car hobby. Self driving will be a huge boon to elderly and handicapped drivers.

· Aug 21

The fake images that come up on Facebook and Instagram are terrible. But using AI to pick a paint or interior color is a wonderful tool. Have not thought about the possibility it may kill all of us.

· Aug 21

I’m probably a rudimentary user, but I have been playing around with AI color painting choices as I think about refurbishing a Locomobile town car. I’m sure more sophisticated applications and a more experienced user could get far better results than my hack attempts at seeing what different colors might look like:….

The car originally in all black circa 1939

(edited)

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· Aug 21

Great photo! I have used ChatGPT to clean up photographs. It has got much better lately. It used to subtlety screw the car up and you needed to be careful.

I'm not a fan of guys that publish colorized photos. However using it to figure out what color to paint your car is a great use for it.

· Aug 21

Btw, that dark blue looks great! Do you know the original color?

· Aug 21

The original color was black.

· Aug 21

AI is still very stupid.
This was on my Facetwit feed today.

· Aug 21

Did it answer wrong? Not sure I understand. It won't get the joke.

· Aug 23

Since I just did this I figure I would post it here. Not the best results ever but little effort.

Before.

· Aug 23

After.

· Aug 23

I think it looks good. At the price of tires, I don’t know if you change it for those looks, but if the time comes to update the tires. You could make the change then.