Is The AI Image Generator Trend Overblown?

If you’ve seen any of the hilariously disturbing results that came out of DALL-E 2, you may know what we’re talking about when we mention an AI image generator. 

The AI image generator trend has been blowing up as of late – and it’s easy to see why. We pop our stupidest fantasies into a prompt and out pops all sorts of hilarious nonsense. You’d put in a prompt, say, “man in a banana suit crashes a wedding,” and out pops:

Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s a dud, and sometimes it’s eerie… 

What began as a crude attempt at artwork by a machine has developed into some seriously credible works of art. If I were a freelance artist, I might find some of those results a tad unnerving. But how good is an AI image generator really? Is this just the latest tech trend that will go nowhere? Or is this something more disruptive to the industry?

We tested some of them and find out exactly what these things are capable of. To level the playing field, we decided to use the same three prompts for all AI image generators:

Disco dance party

Couple walking under an umbrella in the rain

Despair

C’mon, don’t you want to see an AI’s take on despair? Here’s what we learned about AI image generator quality.

DALL-E mini

DALL-E is the popular girl. She’s the one we see all over Twitter featuring hilarious nightmares of muppets in horror games and various condiments testifying in court. Let’s see how DALL-E 2 does with our brilliant prompts. 

Disco dance party

That’s pretty much what I expected. Nothing crazy, nothing hilarious, just a good ol’ gay disco party.

Couple walking under an umbrella in the rain

Alright, a little lame for my taste but this adequately follows the prompt. B- except what is going on here:

Yikes…

Despair

Okay, I’d say it nailed the prompt here. 

Owner’sMag Grade: B, as expected

Moving on. 

NightCafe

NightCafe, while it sounds like a sweet hangout joint for night shift workers, is a popular AI image generator. It has more options than DALL-E mini and appears to be far more artistic. The downside is you need to use “credits” in order to use the AI.

Of the choices available, we’re going to pick the most popular one “coherent.” And there are even more choices on what style you want (oil painting, cosmic, sinister, candy, cubist– it’s a lot). For the sake of this experiment, let’s try to go with the contrast between prompts and style. Just for giggles. 

Let’s see how this AI image generator spits out a prompt. 

Disco dance party (Sinister)

I’m both terrified and intrigued. 

Couple walking under an umbrella in the rain (3D Game)

Are those figures in the background human? Chesspieces? B*ttplugs? 

Despair (Synthwave)

Okay, I LOVE this. This is what despair looks like on molly. I’m printing it and hanging it in my house. Done.

Owner’sMag Grade: A

Artbreeder

I don’t exactly love the name, but Artbreeder is another popular AI image generator. It doesn’t do anything particularly unique from other image generators but it’s certainly one of them. It’s also got a bit of a juvenile webpage design which I also don’t love. But. Whatever. 

A plus, however, is that images generate pretty quickly given the prompts. That in and of itself is kinda cool. 

Disco dance party

This looks as if Lady Gaga’s Chromatica Ball were a nightmare. 

Couple walking under an umbrella in the rain

It’s like a Gap commercial that had a stroke. 

Despair

Okay, wow. That’s horrifying. It’s like the surface of an asteroid has a demon face. Good god, get me away from this nightmare. I absolutely love it. 

Owner’sMag Grade: A

Deep Dream Generator

Deep Dream Generator is the kind of name for an AI image generator I can get behind. This one is by Google so it was probably created by some smart nerds. Unlike the others, you have to upload a starting image – I think that’s kinda lame but fine. I will be Google Image Searching the same prompts and picking the most appropriate, non-stock image. 

You have to pick between “Deep Style,” “Thin Style,” and “Deep Dream.” For these prompts, we’re going to choose “Deep Style,” because I like imagining the voice of Isaac Hayes saying “Deep Style.” You also have to select another style after that. This is more work than I’d like to put into an AI image generator but here we are. 

Disco dance party (Graffiti) 

This looks dated. 

Couple walking under an umbrella in the rain (Colorful Abstract)

It looks like it’s made of cheap taffy. 

Despair (Renoir)

Deep Dream Generator sucks. None of these are impressive. This is some 2008 photo editor bullsh*t. 

Owner’sMag Grade: F, horrible. I’m annoyed. 

DeepAI

Okay, back to a simply used AI image generator. Unlike the others, you can customize these images after if you so choose. Me? I don’t care enough to edit these. This is just a silly experiment. 

Anyway…

Disco dance party

Very similar to DALL-E 2. Not impressed. 

Couple walking under an umbrella in the rain

I ran out of free credits. I’m not paying for more. I have a mortgage to pay. 

Despair

This sucks. They only allow you one free image. 

Owner’sMag Grade: C-, coulda let me create more but…

Moving on.

StarryAI

First of all, I love the name. StarryAI advertises itself as a free NFT maker but I couldn’t care less about non-fungible tokens. I’m just here for the images, alright? 

On StarryAI, you pick between two AIs: Altair and Orion. Altair creates “dream-like images” and Orion creates “unreal reality.” I’m going to pick the “unreal reality” because that sounds cool. 

Like the others, you pick a style that follows. I’m going to be sticking with the contrast theme.

Disco dance party (Lovecraftian)

Yes. Brilliant. Horrifically awesome. 

Couple walking under an umbrella in the rain (National Geographic photo)

Well, if that ain’t atmospheric as hell. 

Despair (Cinema 4D)

This is the most optimistic portrayal of despair I’ve ever encountered. Don’t you love irony? 

Owner’sMag Grade: A

WOMBO Dream

Finishing off our clusterf*ck of an AI image generator list is WOMBO Dream – easily the winner in the name department. It may be a Canadian company but I hear WOMBO in an Australian accent. 

Like the others, you type a prompt, select a style, and generate. WOMBO prompts a couple of stock images for the AI to frame its creation. I picked a cool escalator photo. 

Word on the net is that WOMBO is the best of all the text-to-image AIs currently trending. Is it? We shall see. 

Disco dance party (Malevolent)

Oh my god, I love it. Stunning. Iconic. Gorgeous. Print it. It’s mine. 

Couple walking under an umbrella in the rain (Ghibli)

Very muggy, but in the coziest way. 

Despair (Ukiyoe)

I don’t know what I’m looking at and that’s precisely why I love it. 

Owner’sMag Grade: A

Funny, I find myself analyzing art created by artificial intelligence the way I would art created by a human.

Could text-to-image be the hint of things to come? Is this proof that machines can have a soul? 

Boy, if I were a freelance artist I’d be irked.