It seems half the people I know on social media have replaced their profile pics with awkward AI avatars (and by social media, I mean Facebook... because yes, I'm still on Facebook, because I'm now officially over 40 and like to see what my friends and their kids are up to, and I don't actually live that close to many of them, and besides, I'm part of that weird micro-generation that hates picking up the phone but also loves doom-scrolling).
There's Starrytars, Lensa, Portrait AI, AI art, DaVinci... the list goes on and on. The basis is simple--upload 10-20 photos of yourself and get back an "original" piece of art featuring...you! Lots of people are jumping in on it, and I'm sure, like every other profile pic trend that's happened in the last ten years, we'll find out soon enough some nefarious data mining having to do with the uploading of 10-20 photos of our faces and facial recognition hacking.
The seedy underbelly of how AI algorithms pilfer art from hundreds of thousands of actual living, breathing artists, is also making its way through the interwebs. Still, from what I've seen, fewer people are talking about that side of the AI trend.
The interesting thing to me is the plethora of ads I'm now receiving promising that these same AI Art apps will make my every imaginary wish come true, and all I have to do is type in what I want, and I will receive some Caldecott-winning illustration worthy representation of what I specified.
Since I tell my kid stories of made-up creatures almost every night, I figured, "why the hell not? A free 3-day trial might be worth it to see what all the fuss is about." I used both the AI Art and DaVinci apps. The first prompt I used was "a unicorn cat who lives in an ice palace at the end of the rainbow." Her name is GlitterPoof if you care to know, and she rides all over the skies of the world in a cloud train car. This is not how I envisioned GlitterPoof, but still, a gigantic cosmic ice beast cat living in their own fortress of solitude, or the JC Penny caticorn portrait of our obvious dreams, is a start.
After about an hour of realizing I wasn't going to get much variation on the rainbow caticorn, I transitioned to asking about "2 cats in Germany eating Berlinger donuts." The kid and I have another series of stories where we travel around the world visiting cats in different areas and regions where they make different sweets. We learn about geography and regional dishes, and get to hang out with cats. They're pretty great stories. But AI illustrations? That's when shit got real weird. Like, really...what the actual fuck are these?
Let me tell you--this AI trip was worth it. And I will never be doing it again. This is not the stuff dreams are made of. This is the shit terrifying nightmares are made of. And for all my illustrator friends out there... Don't worry, I really don't think anyone who is willing to pay for fantastical illustrations is going to switch over to the world of AI art any time in the near future.
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