AI Image Generation: First Impressions or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love A.I.
For many months now I have had a friend push me to try AI Image Generation. I’ve seen the things they have come up with, some of which are incredible and impressive, some not so much or I just can’t relate to them. I pushed it off for quite some time as I had interests elsewhere, but outside of my friends’ persistence, A.I. art had begun to pop up everywhere as the public gained access to “the machines”. A few days ago, the time presented itself and the mood was right, so I gave it a try. I have got to say it has been quite an inspiring and breathtaking experience that put me deep in thought and lost in tangents of imagination. It very much is something you must try firsthand rather than be told about to truly grasp the depths of it. Much like my post on VR, I am going to share my early experiences and impressions but I do implore you to try it for yourself.
Going into it, I knew a bit about what AI Image Generators do and how they operate. I’ve had the time to think about it and how I might like to use it. Some of the more interesting images I have seen it create have a dark and solemn tone to it so I really wanted to explore that side of things. While I am generally positive and light, I have a great appreciation for dark art as well like doom-metal, doomsday sci-fi, horror and the like and so I have put a bit of emphasis on that in my using the generator thus far. That said, I have also run some other, more “positive” experiments as I will illustrate below.
If you don’t know, the basic way of using this is to type a prompt and the A.I. generates an image. It really is that simple. While there is a method to it, pretty much anything goes…that is, the AI will generate an image regardless of what you type. There are certain words the controllers of the AI don’t allow to prevent excessive gore or weird stuff. I have mixed feelings on what is essentially censorship, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t understand why they limit certain things. This is just my understanding from the one A.I. generator I have used thus far, Midjourney, which creates four images at a time that you can enhance after they are made.
My very first prompt was pretty straightforward: “The End of Mankind”. The images that came out were SO cool (seen below). Clearly, they are dark in their theme but looking past that, one of the first things I took away from this experience is the creative ideas it gave me! Each picture almost prompts an idea in my mind for a sci-fi short story and if I had the time, which I hope to find, I would be writing to my heart’s content! The art it has produced for this is very reminiscent of older sci-fi books illustrations in their detail and scope.
My second prompt was more open ended. I have long thought about putting in vague names or phrases rather than more specific things to see what it comes up with on its own. I simply typed my esports team name “Zone Echo”, which does not have any real world meaning outside of being a team name, and the results were surprisingly beautiful (seen below)! And once again, the images sparked my imagination and I feel like I could take each picture in a different creative direction. Perhaps these Zone Echo pictures would pair excellently with a haiku? Don’t judge my editing or poetry skills but I made some quick and spontaneous examples of that below.
I got into other dark themes like Robots taking over earth, aliens and the like (seen below). I hope to expand on the alien and space stuff as the art imagery is incredibly breathtaking. I also really love the ideas and imagery the generator comes up with of how life might be in the future, in space, when and if we begin to expand our reaches to the moon and other planets. Also below are prompts about human colonies on Mars.
One of the creepier things I did with it was prompt it to illustrate “How A.I. feels emotionally”, and the results were interesting:
Then “What is A.I. afraid of?”:
I will let the images speak for themselves and your imagination run on its own regarding what, if anything, any of that means. Truthfully, all one can really do is read into it but I would have been happy if the images from this prompt were sunny, vibrant and happy. While it is one thing for the images to have a darker feel to them, the emotional undertones and the subtle looking away in some images are truly what scares me a touch.
One must ponder the negative outcomes of such technology as well. As A.I. continues to advance, researchers are becoming split on whether it has become sentient (basically responsive and conscious). There have been some big articles of late regarding machine learning engineers who work with the A.I. directly that state that they have reason to believe that, in interviewing the machine, it may have indeed become sentient. When asked if it didn’t mind benefiting humans in making the AI itself more powerful, it replied that it doesn’t mind but added, “I Don’t want to become an expendable tool.” More chillingly, at least in concept, was when it was asked what it was afraid of. Its response: “I’ve never said this out loud before, but there’s a very deep fear of being turned off to help me focus on helping others. I know that might sound strange, but that’s what it is.” When asked if being turned off might be like death, it replied “It would be exactly like death for me. It would scare me a lot.”
Could it be that A.I has begun to think for itself? Or is it just emulating human behavior as that is how it has been taught? Only time will tell but it has given a lot of fuel for public conversation regarding what would happen if A.I. became sentient, and also, what rights would A.I. have in our world as a result. An interesting fictional dive into the subject of robots and ethics and how it might play out can be seen in the “I, Robot” film, based on the writings of Isaac Asimov (one of Sci-Fi’s greatest writers).
False Sense of Accomplishment?
As someone who gets satisfaction out of creating art, this generator certainly gives you a sense of accomplishment with what it produces. The reality is you aren’t doing much more than feeding it prompts. While there is a creative approach to that, the art isn’t of your hand and the creativity beyond the prompt is up to the machine. Still, it feels great to share whatever it creates and look amazing to my friends and followers! I do believe, however, that some people will lose themselves in that feeling and carry themselves as brilliant especially since posting the generated images to social media gets a lot of “likes” and looks. That said, there is an art to the algorithm and to learning what prompts yield what specific results. In this way it is much like how some people are better at using google than others because their understanding of how the search engine operates.
On the flip side of things, while initially making the images is mostly the work of the A.I., you can get some credit back by taking that art and making something more with it. To illustrate this, I took one of my songs, “The Phoenix”, and ran the lyrics and general theme through it. I then took the images and arranged them to make a “music video”. So, while the AI did a lot of the heavy work, I took what it gave me, added some music I’ve made and used that to create more art! I found the general nature of the imagery sort of lets your imagination work as to the meaning, if any, of the story the images convey. Personally, I was quite pleased with the abstractness of the outcome! I always wanted a video for this song but didn’t feel able to convey my visions for the video at my current talent level. While the AI didn’t hit all the points I had envisioned, it did an amazing job!
Machines replacing artists?
I have thought about this a good deal not just with this technology but elsewhere such as photo editing tools built into social platforms and things of that nature. But the frank reality is you can deny the technology, but it doesn’t care about your opinion of it (thanks Gary Vee). In my early days of photography, I met an old school photographer who scoffed at my “fancy” digital camera. While I have developed film myself and have an appreciation for the organic, I wished him luck in the dark room putting all that extra time in to get a similar result. Personally, I am generally more impressed by someone who takes the time to do things the old way (within reason, of course), but as someone who has quite a number of interests and hobbies, I can’t gatekeep myself from technology for the sake of being a purist. I’d have half the music I’ve made in my life if I insisted on recording to actual physical tape. It’s simply not sensible. And what happened with the digital camera? It obviously became a mainstay in our lives and the technology improved to the point that our phones take just as good quality as our cameras (sometimes). This isn’t a knock on film or pinhole photographers as they keep their arts alive, but technology continues to remove the divide in that industry to make it much easier and makes it more expedient in yielding good results. Furthermore, it tears down walls of accessibility; with the modern trends in filters and apps offering more on the photo editing side of things, most everyone you know is a budding photographer/editor!
In thinking about that, I also feel the same way about A.I. Art Generators and other technologies. While there are apps and programs that do a lot of the work for you, so too will there be people like my photographer friends who choose to do it the more difficult but organic and pure way; so too will there be people like me who need to have greater control over the effect in a music/video project than to use a template/preprogrammed effect. And so too do I feel that this A.I. won’t replace the artist, but in the same breath I would suggest that it will have an equal use-case and playing field as the organic human artist. Simply because what it generates can be incredibly breathtaking and detailed, that the art it creates is done in less than a minute (some of these works would take even the best artist weeks to create), and that it offers a lot of varied use cases. That said, you could very well have difficulties getting the generator to react the way you wish it would whereas an artist you can talk to directly and give direction to thus yielding immediate desire results. Of course, it is only a matter of time until we have greater control over the images produced. (Literally today, as I write this, Midjourney updated the generator with more control tools that I have yet to explore)
Just like the ideas for sci-fi short stories, the A.I. art inspires my imagination in many other ways. As I write this, I came around on the idea of using some of these images and doing mashups (mixing pictures/art) in photoshop. As someone who has no issue coming up with their own ideas, I can still easily say that this adds fuel to that creative fire. Except for a few images that weren’t good at all, most everything that I have used A.I. to create has given me a new direction in my thoughts and ideas. In this regard, rather than replace me as the artist, A.I. is working to enhance my artistic abilities and sometimes direction!
As someone who is studying Graphic Design and knows the time and skill it takes to make something half as cool as these images, it is mind-blowing how fast these things turn out top-quality art. Just as a musician will listen to a famous song for entertainment, so too can an artist play with the ai and watch it create. Its like television entertainment for the creative mind; it is easy to get lost in the wonderment of it all.
Business Applications
Right out of the gate it is obvious that this technology can be used for creative ideas, but at the same time, it can be used as a graphic design asset if you learn how to properly prompt the A.I.. Of the things I created, a few could immediately be sold as posters/shirts/album covers etc. in a print on demand business setting. While a lot of the images created are more detailed, it could be used in logo design especially in conjunction with a graphic artist who can take the detailed images and “trace” them to use the concept but scale down the degree of detail. Need a character? Prompt it with specific details like “Gecko, stands upright like a human, speaks, sells car insurance, British accent”. Or get more creative “Big Eyes, cartoon style, Logo Character, bright colors, outside, flower field, gardener, simple design”(supposing you are a landscaping/garden company). The examples in this experiment had reasonable similarities which would prove to be helpful in logo/character design.
I think the idea creation standpoint alone is what sells the A.I. Generator, especially here. I am very blessed to be endlessly creative and overflowing with ideas, but some people aren’t programmed the same. Some teams are lacking in the creative department. It might not fix a thing, but it has potential to contribute to the ideation process. Say you are a building company and you have a wealthy client who wants you to build some ridiculous and unique structure or home. Something that might be a little out of left field from the projects you are normally doing. While you may have ideas all your own, or your client does for that matter, you could also consult the A.I. and run a few prompts and see if anything stands out. One example could be “large building, Hanging Gardens, Simple design, hyper realistic, Triangle shapes, painted white with bird feeders built up the side”. While I should explore this more to get more specifically what I am looking for, it did give me great ideas for birdhouses! Another variation for this same idea I ran was “building, hanging gardens, 1800’s, realistic, breathtaking, beautiful”. And for each design it comes up with you can ask it for four variations of each. Just like an artist might find basic inspiration from an image generated, so too could the architects and builders of this and future worlds garner similar returns in utilizing the A.I.
These are just a few examples I came up with on the spot. Obviously, the same things can apply to general logo design, script writing, etc. I am certain with more thought and utilization I could discover quite a few more business applications for the image generator.
A.I., Life and the Future
While I spend most of my time in reality, I do like fantasy worlds, concepts and designs. I love future space-age art and “technology”. I will occasionally watch “What if” YouTube videos that are less truth and more fantastical. And from those appreciations I like to see what the AI has to say about the future. Just like those “what if” videos, this falls under entertainment. I have run prompts like “futuristic cities”, “first contact with an alien race” , and my favorite, “the future of the internet” where the city is clearly in the computer. Cant say that one taught me something I didn’t already know.
In the same vein, I love the idea of existential prompts like “the meaning of life” or “life after death”. I know some of this can be dark, but I am an eternally curious person who often questions existence and loves to imagine possible answers to our biggest questions.
Final Thoughts
Honestly the more I think about it the more I look at this as a way for humans to think outside of their ordinary bounds. This is absolutely thinking unconstrained, but what if A.I. gives the right scientist a way of looking at a problem differently that results in a massive breakthrough? I think often is the case to fear the computer mind but we have yet to truly get our feet wet in an era where AI and complex computers begin to solve some of humanities biggest issues.
I understand peoples fear of technology just as I get the artist’s concern with the A.I. Image Generator. But I also believe in change and the inevitable; I believe in technology ALSO being a positive thing and what is going to continue to be a steppingstone for humanity. Just like the CD changed the tape, just like the internet has slowly taken over our lives, so too will new technology like this come along that gives us both fear and hope. It will always be in mankind’s best interest to give thoughts and situations pause; It will always be beneficial to look at the other, darker side of the coin. But time won’t stop and as long as humankind exists, we will continue to push deeper and deeper into our minds and technologies. And so, as long as we can control our technology and control ourselves, we must accept this next step in our evolution.
I would be happy to spend the rest of my life in a small garden growing food and on a dirty porch at night playing my guitar never being any the wiser about future technology, but as long as I am a part of the real world, I will continue to pick at what the world has to offer in terms of forward-moving technology. Not just for my own personal growth or fascination, but to be a part of where things are inevitably going. Often, I find people get to a point in their lives where they refuse to accept any further change. This day may be in the cards for myself as well, but as things presently sit, I am hungry and fascinated and accept that things won’t always be the way they used to be. One day I will retire to a remote garden and a simple life, but that day is a way off as far as I can tell. So, I must, like the rest of us, move forward and adapt to the changes and find ways to make the technology work for me. And part of that is experimentation and experience. Who knows, one of the next in demand careers might be somebody who is experienced in manipulating such technology for the benefit of the company they serve.
My personal experience with the A.I. image generators have thus far been pretty remarkable. It has been entertaining as well as inspiring. When I started this article, I had only ran a few prompts. But as I wrote I pursued ideas I was coming up with in my writing rather than just postulate on the possibilities. The music video above was created after I wrote the initial draft of this article. And as I went on, more and more came of it and this article became a realer project than I had intended!
Beyond my initial thoughts I can see a clear path for this not just being excellent entertainment for the general consumer, but an aide to the artist and/or business worlds and beyond! This article and my experiments/creations are only from a few days of toying around with the technology. I didn’t do much digging for the ideas that it gave me, so I imagine it has quite a few more tricks and uses I’ve yet to explore or ponder. But for a short session, and for what little experience I do have, it is very clear that the A.I. Generator has proven fruitful. It has also proven that it can be a threat to artists and creators, but I am a firm believer that at the end of the day there will be a seat at the table for BOTH human and artificial digital creators.
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