Playing with AI Art Generators

I have mixed feelings about AI art generators. I'm not sure they'll ever grow out of their current position as "novelty," but to imagine a world where they serve a specific purpose (in the arts, or, in the capital-A Arts) doesn't seem like a bridge too far.

Photography probably occupied a similar boogeyman position when it first developed and became available to the masses. And e-readers caused much hand-wringing among publishers of actual physical books, like "the end of the Book is nigh," which I think is laughable. A lack of literacy is more alarming to me than the rise of a tiny, plastic, book-shaped/book-purposed thing.

So, really, what is the real fear about AI art generators? They don't stop professional artists from trying to speak to the human condition...

Anyway, I was playing with various generators from various websites, for free, and seeing what I could do. This could be an interesting venture later, a deep dive that could yield some bizarre, broken AI-like images. Today, though, I just Googled "ai art generators" and tried three of the ones the search engine returned. The results were mixed. Maybe next time I'll use the same prompt to gauge which I like best. 

This first is from the NightCafe Creator programming. The first prompt I offered was:

"cafe full of black panthers"

I can see what the AI was trying. And I guess I like it. The atmospheric Parisian look is something I probably would have unconsciously tried to achieve had I felt compelled to try to paint the idea.

Maybe, as an untrained amateur painter, I shouldn't gauge the results off what I would do.

The second prompt I offered was to Hotpot.ai and was:

"outdoor library populated by smoking revolutionaries"

This image took FAR longer to achieve than the first. Maybe that was a property of the generator or the prompt or both, but I didn't feel that the result was good enough for the wait. So far, I prefer the first image. What makes that character a revolutionary...and are they smoking? Is that an oxygen mask after years of smoking? Also, my prompt was plural, as in less lonely...just saying.

That picture inspired me to get frisky. I wanted something far more chaotic or "cuckoo bananas" as a friend says. The last prompt I entered into a third generator (who's name I can't remember) was:

"a cat and a dog are playing ping pong with a frog on fire instead of a ball"

Well, it's certainly more chaotic. It looks like two cats, and maybe their heads are paddles...? It's certainly bizarre, but barely legible as to WTF is happening.

I still prefer the first.

There remains ample room to have fun with this...