Commentary on AI Art

Sometimes AI produces useful and even stunning results. And other times…not so much.

My blog post yesterday was a metaphor/fable entitled “The Hamster and the Hummingbird.” When I finished pasting it from Notes where I had composed it, I thought, “Hey, wouldn’t it be great to have an AI-generated graphic to illustrate it?”

It would. But the results I got were not very useful. I’m placing the best one below. Somehow the prompt, “A hummingbird hovers above a cage with a hamster running in a wheel,” became interpreted as, “Hummingbirds flying around a cage.” In some cases, there was no hamster at all, and in one the hamster, standing outside the cage, had wings. Through the default setting, Concept Art, Photography, Oil Painting, 3D, and Art Nouveau, I found only one relatively useful illustration. When you look at it, ask, “Why’s the hamster wheel outside the cage?”

As I’m writing this blog post and listing the styles I used, I realized I missed Cartoon, and so re-generated the prompt. At least it has a wheel and a hummingbird—but with two hamsters and no cage, it doesn’t quite fit the bill.

I find AI less threatening every time I use it.