alt Hacker NewsIt's like styrofoam stucco on the ceiling.
Decoration and ornament have served always to signal extra effort that went into something, signaling that it is considered important and valued by the maker/owner. But people also have incentive to do cheaper mimicry. And then the viewers have incentive to distinguish real from fake to see where true, scarce effort went. These dynamics are crucial for understanding the feelings and emotions around AI. Value is almost never in the thing itself or some inherent quality but in the social signals and relationships. (somewhat less true in very utilitarian engineering machinery or for sustenance level basic necessities).
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Stucco on the ceiling is done to hide imperfections from hastily installed drywall.
In cheap housing constructing, every step hides the previous steps mistakes. Framing - drywall - trim - texturing - painting - decorating.
That is one use.
Images (incl. icons) can also be there to structure text and provide visual clues on what is where.
It's weird to observe that trend in house decor, first it was mark of wealth, after that when cheaper methods to replicate the look (and some might be even more smooth than doing it by hand) it flew down to cheaper and cheaper had that look, while "wealthy" moved to simpler one, often just showing off amount of space or some expensive material used. And now more simple looks trickled down too
In a blog, real images signify you spent a lot of time creating the post, it was very important to you, and you likely made sure the details in the text were accurate.
While AI images in a blog signify low effort high volume posting where the text likely was just copied from AI without any care.