Shaw Nielsen
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shawnielsen.bsky.social
Shaw Nielsen
@shawnielsen.bsky.social
650 followers 550 following 33 posts
Illustrator, like a ray of sunshine and a pencil had a baby. https://www.shawnielsen.com/
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Reposted by Shaw Nielsen
konayma6.bsky.social
Call of Duty isn't even hiding the fact that loads of its calling cards and other unlockables are AI generated this year.

For one of the biggest video game franchises in the world this is pretty disgusting...
November 14, 2025 at 2:53 PM
Reposted by Shaw Nielsen
grudgie.bsky.social
“The President sent his lawyer to negotiate a settlement with a convicted sex trafficker to provide cushy accommodation in exchange for her silence on his participation in said sex trafficking” is a cold description of the facts of an insane story that the media doesn’t find worthy of scrutiny
November 10, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Reposted by Shaw Nielsen
jkmakes.bsky.social
#MakeAThing
Watercolor doodle of a butterfly standing up on two legs like a human and smoking a cigarette. It says, make shitty art if you want to, who's going to stop you?
October 26, 2025 at 2:47 PM
Reposted by Shaw Nielsen
darrencullen.bsky.social
Did a new one
Government style ad in watercolour. Image of a burglar stealing a painting from the wall of a home. Tagline: "It's not theft... if you say you're using it to train your AI algorithm". Body text: "Theft is now legal, so we can boost the economy by eliminating jobs. If that doesn't make any sense, ask a chatbot to explain it to you." HM government logo in the corner.
August 7, 2025 at 6:46 PM
Reposted by Shaw Nielsen
culturecrave.co
“Fuck AI”

— Guillermo del Toro

🎥 Vanity Fair
October 18, 2025 at 3:20 PM
Reposted by Shaw Nielsen
faineg.bsky.social
there’s this weird idea a lot of people seem to have about how all of us writers and artists must secretly want to use AI and are merely resisting temptation for ethical reasons, and like, no, it’s not hard for me to resist drinking the bowl of Piss With Glass In It actually
October 9, 2025 at 9:24 PM
Reposted by Shaw Nielsen
junoryleejournalism.com
David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)
SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems... SIMON: What? SHAPIRO: ...Or saying... SIMON: You imagine that? SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over. SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level. SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this. SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.
October 9, 2025 at 4:42 AM
Reposted by Shaw Nielsen
scalzi.com
Not for me, "AI" aimed at consumers has very little offer anyone who actually does at a professional level the creative things it mimics. I write better than an LLM, an artist does better art than an image generator, a musician makes better music than an "AI" music tool.
rinue.bsky.social Jeff @rinue.bsky.social · Oct 2
Do you see AI actually being a useful tool for writing?
October 2, 2025 at 6:43 PM
Reposted by Shaw Nielsen
broadwaybabyto.bsky.social
Sesame Street will be putting a huge collection of episodes on YouTube starting in January 2026

This is a fantastic way to educate children

It’s a form of resistance.

Shows like Sesame Street teach love, tolerance, acceptance & more.

These lessons are crucial for the long fight ahead.
September 5, 2025 at 12:10 AM
Reposted by Shaw Nielsen
hireillo.com
From the 2020 archive! "National Parks of the United States of America Map" by @shawnielsen.bsky.social 🙌 Portfolio: hireillo.com/c81

#Art #Illustration #TBT #ThrowbackThursday
Illustrated map of the United States showing locations and icons for various national parks, with major animals and landmarks represented across the country. Illustration of a large black bear and a bear cub walking in front of colorful, stylized trees with a small flower in the grass. Illustration of a red rock arch with a large opening in the center, resembling Delicate Arch in Utah, against a plain background. Illustration of a brown bison grazing on green grass, with trees and bushes in the background.
September 4, 2025 at 9:32 AM
Reposted by Shaw Nielsen
danacea.bsky.social
And on the subject of #realartatters: AI poisoning tool NIGHTSHADE is now free for artists to use: venturebeat.com/ai/nightshad...
Nightshade, the free tool that ‘poisons’ AI models, is now available for artists to use
The tool's creators are seeking to make it so that AI model developers must pay artists to train on data from them that is uncorrupted.
venturebeat.com
August 23, 2025 at 9:17 AM
Reposted by Shaw Nielsen
crimsonmayhem.bsky.social
So apparently, it may turn out that The Wizard of Oz at the Las Vegas Sphere wasn’t entirely made in AI and Google threw the VFX crew under the bus by claiming it was all done by artificial intelligence.

If true, then fucking yikes.
August 5, 2025 at 4:19 AM
Reposted by Shaw Nielsen
birdhistory.bsky.social
Norman Rockwell was actually a progressive and challenging artist and his reputation for nostalgic schlock was undeserved.
July 4, 2025 at 8:31 PM
Reposted by Shaw Nielsen
edmorrish.bsky.social
my new ai device will sit in a beer garden that backs onto a small river and drink three to five pints on a sunny late summer afternoon for you, leaving you free for more meetings and business calls
July 26, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Reposted by Shaw Nielsen
faineg.bsky.social
I do firmly believe that refusing to outsource your basic cognitive functions to LLMs right now - as so many are stumbling over themselves to do right now, like hogs trotting to a pile of slop that’s been set up inside of a butcher’s delivery truck - will very much pay off in a few years.
July 26, 2025 at 1:56 AM
Reposted by Shaw Nielsen
moryan.bsky.social
New stamps dropped to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the US Postal Service & artist Chris Ware (Reader, NewCity, Jimmy Corrigan etc) designed one of the commemorative stamp sets! blockclubchicago.org/2025/07/22/u... (also hey, the USPS still exists, at this moment anyway, so that's something)
USPS Needed Stamps For Its 250th Anniversary. Local Cartoonist Chris Ware Delivered
Ware, a contributor to The New Yorker who began his career in Chicago’s alt weeklies, designed a sheet of 20 stamps that show a mail carrier's neighborhood journey. The stamps go on sale Wednesday.
blockclubchicago.org
July 23, 2025 at 5:22 PM
Reposted by Shaw Nielsen
sarahjones.bsky.social
wrote about my family’s nemesis www.dissentmagazine.org/online_artic...
The Painter of the Right - Dissent Magazine
Thomas Kinkade’s paintings show conservatives a world they have already won.
www.dissentmagazine.org
July 16, 2025 at 8:18 PM
Reposted by Shaw Nielsen
pauljholden.com
An ai cover on your magazine about writing is pretty disappointing.
The magazine writing. Features an “illustration” of a raised hand Holden a pencil. But from the weird morphology of the fingers it’s clear it’s been generated by ai.
July 18, 2025 at 3:40 PM
Reposted by Shaw Nielsen
ddayen.bsky.social
Rian Dundon, a photographer based in Portland, went down to L.A. to provide a portrait of life in a city that is partially under occupation by ICE. His photos reveal heartbreak and fear but also the city's culture and fighting spirit. Great photo essay at the link.
prospect.org/culture/2025...
Photo Essay: ICE in L.A.
Scenes of a city under siege
prospect.org
July 8, 2025 at 1:27 PM
Reposted by Shaw Nielsen
kjcharleswriter.com
I just received a contract on Docusign for review and signing, and it offered to give me an AI-generated summary that I could read instead to save time.

That's AN AI-GENERATED SUMMARY ***OF A CONTRACT***, in case you need to let that sink in.
June 30, 2025 at 7:38 AM
Reposted by Shaw Nielsen
hireillo.com
No matter how small your contribution to taking care of our environment, whether turning off an unused light or recycling a paper cup, it's all important. We only have one planet!

Happy Earth Day 2025! 💚 #EarthDay

Artwork by Shaw Nielsen
Illustration of Earth with a tired face, sweating, and surrounded by flames in space, suggesting environmental crisis; stars, the moon, and a comet are in the background.
April 22, 2025 at 1:25 PM