You know what AI-generated art is really good for? Generating images fast. Not good images or accurate images, just fast crap that would have taken a human a lot longer to make, except the human may have decided not to do anything profoundly and obviously stupid, like putting a Toyota Tacoma on merch for Ram or getting the number of stars on the American flag wrong. That’s what AI-generated images are good for: making unusably stupid images with breathtaking speed.
I wish this was a joke, but, sadly, it’s not. Stellantis’ main all-truck-all-the-time brand, Ram, has a big merch store absolutely jam-packed with Ram-themed stuff, like T-shirts and knives and drinking glasses and backpacks and hoodies and probably a colonic kit or whatever. You would think that, since the whole point of the merch is to showcase Ram trucks and promote the whole Ram product identity, the use of, say, Ram trucks instead of, oh, Toyota trucks would be a big deal.
You would think that, but clearly Ram doesn’t seem to think something as trivial as not putting a competitor’s truck on their own merch is a big deal, because look at this shirt that was for sale on their site:
So we have a “2026 RAM PATRIOTIC UNISEX T-SHIRT” here. The 2026 checks out, since that’s the year of our Lord that we are in, and I guess it’s unisex, since it lacks any genitalia, and it definitely is a T-shirt. But the Ram and patriotic part? I’m not so sure. Let’s look at the Ram part:
Wait…is that a Ram? I don’t think so. Look:
That’s a Tacoma. A used Tacoma, even. Ram couldn’t even spring for a new Tacoma to put on their Ram shirts? It’s definitely not a Ram, even if someone or some algorithm slapped a RAM badge on that distinctive Tacoma grille.
And as far as patriotic, well, wouldn’t you expect a patriot to at least know how many stars, and from there, states there are in these wonderful United States of America?
I’m pretty sure we have 50 states, and that flag only has, even assuming there’s some blocked behind that Toyota, 40 stars. Look up there, I did the math. So what states is Ram suggesting we remove? A Dakota? We have three of them, after all, I think. Rhode Island? It’s small, maybe no one will notice. Arizona? Maine? North Carolina? Franklin? Florida? Who knows?
Other folks online noticed these issues as well, and the shirt seems to have been pulled from the site. But it’s not the only thing Ram is selling that promotes a Toyota Tacoma. Want a huge, four-foot banner that shows how much you love America, re-badged Tacomas, and AI bullshit? Boy are you in luck!
Look at that thing, proudly proclaiming that this is Truck Country! Truck Country must be a former Japanese colony, based on their mascot truck:
There’s our Toyota again, wearing the RAM badge. Now just on the off chance that you think we’re being too harsh here, that it really isn’t such a big deal to have some other company’s truck on this banner with the Ram name on it, let me present a little analogy.
What if your kid was really into Hello Kitty, and they wanted a Hello Kitty poster. So you go to the Hello Kitty official merch site, and buy a Hello Kitty poster, and you get this:
It says Hello Kitty but the kitty herself has the head of 1978-era Garfield. Do you think your kid would be fine with that? After all, it’s still a cat, right? And before you say it, no I don’t buy that Hello Kitty is somehow not a cat, so save it.
The point is clearly this would not be okay. Sanrio would never allow such a poster to be sold through any of their outlets. So why does a company that makes tiny stationary sets for little kids have such higher standards than Stellantis, one of the world’s biggest carmakers?
Why is Ram okay with this? It’s absurd! The level of AI slop here is so vast and rich it would feed every algorithmic swine in the world. It’s literally the wrong freaking truck on Ram’s own merchandise. They should feel embarassed as hell.
Remember, this isn’t the first time Ram has made an ass of themselves with AI. Take the L and learn the lesson, dummies. Hire some actual designers to make your damn shirts. Sure, you’ll have to pay them, but they will at least know how many damn states there are in American and I suspect will know which motherclutching truck to put on the damn shirt.
We really living in the stupidest of times. Ram, get your head out of your ass.
Top shot: Ram
Preach!
There are more products out there using that mess of an image.
https://us.amazon.com/Truck-Legendary-Metal-Round-Garage/dp/B0CVQQ19HL
I guess nobody is surprised that their merch department is not any more focused on quality than their car building departments.
Extra funny that we know employees of some repute read the Autopian so this hit the Stellantis Teams instance (because why would they use Slack when they could pick something worse) almost immediately
That Hello Kitty/Garfield mashup is a little disturbing.
There’s the old adage about only getting (at most) 2 of 3 of fast, cheap and good. I’d guess this was probably fast, maybe cheap depending on what they paid for the software/AI service. Good it obviously is not, in fact it’s more like one of Jason’s favorite topics, poop. Really bad smelling poop.
Let’s see, 38 states. Merging all of New England into one gets rid of 5, combining both Dakotas and both Carolinas two more, creating a single State of Northwest out of Washington, Oregon and Idaho gets us to 9.
Now that gambling’s legal basically everywhere there’s no good reason for Nevada not to be part of California, Arizona and New Mexico can be one state and carving up Missouri between Illinois and Kansas brings us to 12. Whew.
What’s worse than muddled AI crap is that some person was paid to look at this and OK it for production. That job will probably soon move to AI, too, and the schlub to CEO.
It seems they’ve removed the banner from the store now, too.
Honestly, given that it’s Ram, I would have expected the flag to be a thin blue line variant. All the stars could be Punisher skulls.
One would hope that this is one of those lessons where a company learns to actually pay an artist to do something, but we all know that isn’t going to happen.
It looks like we’re down to 38 states. A couple of those rows only have 7 stars. Also, stupid Stellantis.
The rows have 8-7-8-7-should be 8 but it looks like only 7 would fit. (The real flag is 6-5-6-5-6-5-6-5-6.) So either 37 or 38, it’s a mystery! The question is, who has to leave?
“We Dumb !”
Is this not on-brand for Stellantis, and at the same time, a product directly aimed at their consumer?
Toyota ought to make an ad highlighting how when competitors cheap out on design, the first “badass American Truck” that the AI can think of is a certified pre-owned Toyota Tacoma. They’re built in Texas!
I’d love to see one of these on the wall in a Toyota dealership, inviting customers to ask why.
I don’t know where used Tacomas are built but new ones are built in Baja California and Guanajuato. Tundras are built in Texas.
“I’ll never let a computer tell me shit”-Deltron 3030
I try to avoid AI as much as possible, but have slowly been asking it questions. I try to at least follow up the source material, but its going to be a super slippery slope I can already tell.
I think you’re ahead of most people’s use, actually checking its work. I find it useful for getting going fast on diagnosing car problems, but I always check where the info actually resides. At least when it’s not clear…”you should take it to your local X dealer at Y” needs a less-thorough evaluation I find.
I feel like that’s a very under appreciated album
I was on a school field trip and snuck away to a record store to buy it when it came out. I will listen to it every couple of years and it still hits.
Thanks for the reminder of how nightmarish OG Garfield was, Torch.
This is the most Ram thing that ever Rammed.
So are we just going to wait for AI to break literally everything before, you know, stopping it with this shit? Is that the plan? Seems like that’s the plan.
Won’t happen until people high enough up the ladder get canned for it. Or Rammed.
There are only seven stars in the second and fourth rows so, generously assuming eight in the bottom row, this still only makes 38 stars.
I’d like to see Toyota sue Ram for defamation and using their image without permission
As a Toyota owner I would like to join that suit.
Their TV ads look like the creative team was told they had to appeal to trumpers because ALL of their fucking ads are exactly the kind of cheesey shit trumpers just love, including GINORMOUS flags on flag poles in the truck bed.
I can only imagine this will lead to a strongly worded, email to whatever low-cost-country employee they have running this merch department.
But inevitably it will be written using AI translation, and probably lead to a wagoneer T-shirt featuring the millennium falcon.
Shoutout to Franklin, the best state! Right next to Madness, if you hit Despair youve gone too far
you’ll never get out of the State of Insanity!
Insert the Spongebob “How many times do we have to teach you this lesson old man?” GIF here.
Seems to be 11 stripes as well? I guess we should just be happy they didn’t go with the gag-inducing thin blue line version.
They’re just taking their cue from the Trump Mobile phone, which also features 11 stripes on its flag. Honestly, the Venn diagram for people who buy Trump phones, RAM merch and can’t count past ten without taking off their shoes is pretty much a full circle so it’s all good.
Yes, but can they get to 21 without dropping their pants?
Here to comment the same. I’m starting to formulate a theory about AI use and political affiliation. The further to the right these schmucks are (or pandering to the right), the less they care about accuracy when using AI. Bunch of goddamn morons.
I count thirteen stripes, seven next to the canton and six below it, so that part is actually correct.
Thirteen is plausible if you think the 7th one is next to the canton and it’s not just the wavyness of the flag. I tend to give the benefit of the doubt here.
The first stripe below the canton is white, as on the actual US flag, and I don’t see how that can be the same white stripe as the one that’s at the same level as the top of the cab of the truck, as that stripe pretty clearly must terminate against the side of the canton, given how much of it is visible. This means the seventh stripe (red) must also terminate against the side of the canton, making thirteen stripes in total.
That was the conclusion I came to also, but I did think at first that it was 11 stripes.