Image makers are stuck in a pattern.
this is Atlantic Ocean Intelligence is a newsletter where our writers help you make better sense of artificial intelligence and the new machine age. Sign up here.
At this point, AI art is about as noteworthy as an email offering you 10 percent off a new pair of jeans. On the one hand, it’s miraculous that a computer program can synthesize an image based on a text prompt. On the other, these images are so commonplace that they’ve become a new kind of digital junk, polluting social media feeds and other online spaces without providing any particular benefit to users.
But it’s not just the quantity that’s the energy of spam. These images also tend to look pretty similar. As my colleague Caroline Mims-Nice points out: Atlantic Ocean“Two years into the generative AI boom, the work of these programs appears technologically advanced, but stuck in a peculiar aesthetic sensibility.” By default, these models tend to produce images with bright, saturated colors, beautiful, almost cartoonish figures, and dramatic lighting. Caroline spoke with experts, who gave us four theories as to why.
Ultimately, her report suggests that while tech companies are competing to offer more attractive image generators, in reality the products aren’t all that different in the end. The situation is more like Pepsi vs. Coca-Cola than Toyota vs. Mercedes. People will probably just use the image generator that’s most convenient for them. That may be why companies like X, Google, and Apple are eager to incorporate these models into their existing platforms. Image generators are no longer magic, but a feature to check.
Why does AI art look the way it does?
Caroline Mims Nice
This week, X launched an AI image generator to allow paid subscribers of Elon Musk’s social platform to create their own art. Unsurprisingly, some users quickly created images of Donald Trump flying into the World Trade Center, Mickey Mouse holding an assault rifle, and enjoying a cigarette and a beer on the beach. Some of the images created with the tool are deeply unsettling, others strange and kind of funny. They depict completely different scenarios and characters. But somehow, they all feel similar, bearing the unmistakable hallmarks of the AI art that has emerged in recent years thanks to products like Midjourney and DALL-E.
Read the full article.
What to read next
- Trump is the new Benghazi: Earlier this week, Donald Trump falsely claimed that Kamala Harris had “AI-enhanced” photos of crowds at her rallies. In other words, he claimed that Harris had doctored or fabricated the images to exaggerate the number of people cheering for her. Atlantic OceanTrump’s use of the term may have less to do with the technology itself and more to do with giving his supporters something to post about — a way of giving them permission to follow his example by filling out a text box on his screen.
P.S.
AI art may be at its best when it has an audience of one: “Approaching a generative image creator to produce a desired outcome may do the exact opposite of its potential,” writes Ian Bogost. Atlantic Ocean Last year, AI was able to bring ideas to life in our minds, quickly and at low cost. Any idea can be visually output in seconds. The result is an idea captured in a photograph, not an image to be used as a medium.
Damon
