The state of AI art is a floating dumpster fire
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My friend, Devon had a phrase when something was so bad it was worse than a dumpster fire, it was a “floating dumpster fire”.
That creates such a vivid image, and it is a perfect non-descript prompt for an AI art generator. Such art generated from an AI is in various states of accuracy and interest. I tested four different AI’s and compared them. MidJourney, DallE-2, Stable Diffusion (via Dream Studio), and Craiyon (formerly DallE-Mini)
Going from worst to best, in my opinion:
Craiyon (Formerly DallE-Mini)
My prompts are going to be “floating dumpster fire” when testing these. While it did accurately get dumpster fire right, it was missing the whole floating… thing. However, if you get pedantic with it, you can get more accurate results.
Not bad for the only completely free option!
Stable Diffusion
Stable diffusion is the newest of the bunch, and while it has really great results, it too suffers from the same requirement of accuracy that Craiyon does.
Or so I thought… This actually is a little better than Craiyon because the dumpster sometimes appears to be floating, as in levitating off the ground. If you are more specific, however, it does yield the expected results. Again, “dumpster fire floating in water”:
Sort of… Some times you get fire, sometimes you don’t. Time to get REALLY accurate with what we want. “Fire in dumpster floating in water”:
Finally, fire in every dumpster, dumpster in every water!
MidJourney
MidJourney is an excellent product, and has the most artistic value out of all these AI’s. Really great for album art for bands, or for intriguing blog art. It also got it right… I think.
Very art. Much pretty. Not photo realistic, but I think that is okay.
Dall-E 2
Give it a prompt, get results. This AI doesn’t muck about. Maybe it wasn’t loved enough as a kid. Maybe it’s fallen on hard times and is just down on its luck. Either way, it gets up in the morning and says yesterday is gone and today is a new day, goes out into the world and earns it’s keep as todays winner of who-dun-it-best. If you don’t get it, get out. Get in. Drive home. Flip on the tube. Pull your socks off half way and see how long it takes for them to go the rest of the way.
This was it’s FIRST try!
I mean, look
At how
Spectacular
Conclusion
Various prompts give each AI different results, because they all use different models. I don’t pretend to know all the inner workings of AI, but I do pretend to know how to prompt an AI.
Craiyon is good if you just want to play around for funsies.
Stable Diffusion is really accurate and can yield excellent results. Maybe on par or better than Dall-E 2.
MidJourney is highly artistic and has a very distinct aesthetic.
Dall-E 2 is really great with prompts and is photo accurate when it wants to be.
AI generated images is a new field, and has been really exciting to watch develop over the last couple years, and I can’t wait to see where it takes us in the years to come.
