The Present Age

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This art was made by a computer
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This art was made by a computer

I spent a few days playing with an AI art tool. My mind is blown.

Parker Molloy
Mar 29, 2022
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Share this post
This art was made by a computer
www.readtpa.com

Last week, I saw a tweet from Brielle Garcia

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about a new AI art visualization tool called MidJourney. I’ve messed around a bit with AI-generated art in the past, but MidJourney is just… well, I want to show you. First, here’s the thread that caught my attention:

Twitter avatar for @tacolamp
Brielle Garcia @tacolamp
Got access to @midjourney and am having a blast seeing what it makes. The prompt here was "vaporwave gremlins dream cgsociety psychedelic"
Image
11:51 AM ∙ Mar 22, 2022

So I applied to be a part of the tool’s beta. Within a few days, I had access of my own, and it’s changed how I think about artificial intelligence. I’m absolutely fascinated by the concept, blown away by the current ability to churn out virtually anything you can imagine in seconds, and honestly a little worried about what happens when this technology takes the next leap.

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On to the artwork:

One of my first inputs was “Chicago skyline by Andy Warhol.” It brought back some absolutely stunning stuff looking like this:

Wow. Okay, what next… Okay, how about a “photorealistic picture of World War III:”

That’s… certainly more realistic than I thought it’d be. Not quite enough to fool someone into thinking it’s real, but you can definitely see the potential here. Anyway, a little sillier: “Bart Simpson by Pablo Picasso”

Nailed it. Okay, but “what if Wes Anderson made The Matrix?”

For this one, I just put in the emoji for dog, city night, and rainbow. Here’s what I got:

What if “Walt Disney created a baby ghost character?”

How about “the SARS-CoV-2 virus as a friendly cartoon character?”

Or some abstract “Spider-Man-themed silkscreen” ideas?

Show me “the singularity:”

Okay, now do an interdimensional portal:

The Shakespeare line, “Hell is empty and all the devils are here:”

Or “Phoebe Bridgers as a Byzantine icon:”

Let’s try something goofy but specific… “Dinosaur astronauts in the style of a 1957 Soviet poster”

Something darker, but more realistic: “Children watch as a nuclear warhead explodes in the distance”

Or… “photographic evidence that ghosts are real?”

Or “fossils of extraterrestrials found on Earth:”

How about “a cat wearing a mech suit in the style of Shaun Tan:”

“Mitch McConnell as a Confederate general:”

“Phoebe Bridgers as a Byzantine icon:”

“A portrait of Joe Biden by Grant Wood:”

“The ‘This is fine’ dog as painted by Sandro Botticelli":”

“Elon Musk with lobster claws for hands:”

“Logos for Minor League Baseball teams:”

“Chicago as paper art:”

“The United States of America by Andy Warhol:”

And finally, “Cartoon duck holding a baseball bat:”

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You may know her work from Nick Lutsko’s “Spirit Halloween Planet” video.

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Others have written a lot about ethics in AI and AI-generated art. Rather than try to weigh in with my own take, I’ll leave that to experts who are way smarter than me.

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7 Comments
Shannon Quinn
Mar 29, 2022

I work and conduct academic research in this area of artificial intelligence, and honestly it absolutely blows my mind.

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2 replies by Parker Molloy and others
Luna
Apr 6, 2022

if they haven't given me access by now, they probably won't ;o; i have so many stupid and embarrassing ideas!

if you wanna, do elon musk as a furry or a specific furry, like a femboy fox. lol

this is so cool, and the alien skeleton ones were creepy as shit!

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