The image makers are stuck in a pattern.
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At this point, AI art is about as remarkable as the email that asks you to save 10 percent on a new pair of jeans. On the one hand, it’s a wonder that computer programs can synthesize images based on arbitrary text prompts. On the other hand, these images are so common that they’ve become a new kind of digital garbage, polluting social media feeds and other online spaces without providing users with any particular benefit.
But their high spam energy is not just a question of quantity – these images also often look quite similar. As my colleague Caroline Mimbs Nyce explains in a new story for The Atlantic“Two years after the generative AI boom, the creations of these programs seem to be more technically advanced… but they have a distinct aesthetic.” By default, these models tend to produce images with bright, saturated colors, beautiful and almost cartoonish people, and dramatic lighting. Caroline spoke to experts who gave her four theories as to why this is the case.
Ultimately, their report suggests that while tech companies are competing to offer more compelling image generators, the products aren’t actually that different—it’s more Pepsi vs. Coke than Toyota vs. Mercedes. Perhaps people are simply using the image generator that’s most convenient for them. That might explain why companies like X, Google, and Apple are so eager to build these models into existing platforms: image generators are no longer magic, but a check-box feature.
Why does AI art look like this?
By Caroline Mimbs Nyce
This week, X launched an AI image generator that lets paying subscribers to Elon Musk’s social platform create their own art. And, of course, some users immediately created images of Donald Trump piloting a plane toward the World Trade Center, of Mickey Mouse with an assault rifle, another of him enjoying a cigarette and beer on the beach, and so on. Some of the images people have created with the tool are deeply disturbing; others are just weird, or even kind of funny. They depict wildly different scenarios and characters. But somehow, they all look kind of the same, bearing unmistakable hallmarks of the AI art that has popped up in recent years thanks to products like Midjourney and DALL-E.
Read the full article.
What to read next
- Trump finds a new Benghazi: Earlier this week, Donald Trump falsely claimed that Kamala Harris had “artificially manipulated” a photo of a crowd at one of her campaign rallies – in other words, she had manipulated or simply fabricated an image to exaggerate the number of people cheering her on. As Matthew Kirschenbaum reported for The AtlanticTrump’s use of the term may have less to do with the technology itself and more to do with giving his followers something to post about – “a way to allow them to follow his lead by filling out the text boxes on their own screens.”
PS
AI art may actually work best with an audience of one person. “Turning to generative image creators to achieve a desired outcome could reverse their potential,” wrote Ian Bogost for The Atlantic last year. “AI can give them form outside your mind quickly and inexpensively: any idea, rendered visually in seconds. The result is not images that can be used as media, but ideas captured in an image.”
— Damon
