Watching an AI paint a picture or write a poem can be a little mindblowing. It has the full spectrum of human creation available on the internet to pull from and what it creates is amazing. And sometimes weird. So weird. Which makes using AI to create cover art for book covers kind of interesting.
For one thing, there is no back and forth. You ask the AI for what you want, and then you get what you get. In the first picture above I asked for a man standing in a city covered with vines. The AI was happy to comply. And the picture is amazing. But if it had been painted by a human I could have said, “Thanks, it’s almost perfect. Do you mind doing it again WITHOUT the backpack made of leaves?” Instead I have to figure out what to type differently to get it to stop sticking leaves on the guys back.
And maybe I get lucky, and the AI stops sticking leaves on the guy, but instead it gives him a completely bizarre haircut. (See picture on the right) And why are his pants so short??
The more specific you are, the trickier it gets. Backview of a man facing a city street in the rain hodling an umbrella doesnt seem like that much to ask, but the AI gave my man the smallest umbrella in human history, and I have no idea why.
And forget about adding a bycicle.
You want a picture of a bike? Sure, easy. No problem. You want a guy on that bike? Okay, that’s fine as long as you are okay with a side view. Oh, you want a back view of that guy on that bike? Sorry. All bets are off.
Apparently, from the back, the AI doesn’t know what is man and what is bike. Most of my requests pulled a man with one leg on a bike with one wheel (which would be really impressive in real life). But it also created the picture up there on the right. What IS that? It looks like a scarecrow designed by junk artists who were running out of parts.
So what is to be done? Do we just give up and wait patiently for the AI to get sentience and take over? Maybe. Or, you can keep trying. A lot. A lot a lot. Also, want less. That is actually really good advice in life as well. Which seems like a great note to end things on.