June 24, 2022
It's AI playtime. You will try it, like it, and succumb to its charms over a cup of coffee or two. We're talking, of course, about Dalle-mini, an AI (artificial intelligence) that creates images from text descriptions in a prompt. The AI concocted the photo illustrations above, for example, from the phrase "scratchy eyes."
The publicly available program, Dalle-mini, uses an artificial intelligence application that inhales millions of images from the Internet as a training set and combines them with your words to output a nine-image set. The service is in high demand, so you may get a "bug off we're busy" alert, but try back in a few minutes. It's worth the wait.
Salvatore Would Be Proud
Like its namesake, Salvador Dali, Dalle-Mini creates surrealistic images that often seem dark, moody, and just plain weird. You're probably wondering about the practical applications. Well, number one, it's fun to use. Number two, it seems to work like the creative mind trying to combine multiple ideas. For example, the image below was created using the words "luxury car and corn." As such, it's a fun tool for stimulating creative thinking.
But, the images are low-resolution, and they're unsuitable for use in most commercial applications. However, you may use them as spot illustrations in web and print work or instances where file size is critical, for example, animated gifs. We're experimenting!
Google's Got it, Too
.If you want to upgrade, consider Dalle-E2, a subscription service that offers access off a long waitlist, or to consider the Imagen AI Platform, Google's entry into the space. Unlike Dalle, the images are high resolution, realistic and usable depending on the copyright.
Imagen is also a paid service that’s available for Mac and PC for a $7 per month subscription
The big question. Will AI images replace work by commercial illustrators and photographers? Maybe, but that's another column.
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