this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2026
840 points (95.5% liked)
memes
20456 readers
2114 users here now
Community rules
1. Be civil
No trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour
2. No politics
This is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world
3. No recent reposts
Check for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month
4. No bots
No bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins
5. No Spam/Ads/AI Slop
No advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live. We also consider AI slop to be spam in this community and is subject to removal.
A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
Sister communities
- !tenforward@lemmy.world : Star Trek memes, chat and shitposts
- !lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world : Lemmy Shitposts, anything and everything goes.
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world : Linux themed memes
- !comicstrips@lemmy.world : for those who love comic stories.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
@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. ๐
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.