Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist and humorist James Lileks shared his AI "rejects." He usually combs web sites, thrift stores, auctions, Google Maps, etc. to find interesting visual inspiration for his daily blog, The Bleat. Now he turned it around: he wrote descriptions of his dreams to use as cues for AI image generators. And then of course he brings it full circle with his own funny comments on the absurd results.
In 2023 I started using AI to illustrate dreams I'd written down. The early versions I got from free sites were bad. When I tried to get Don Draper in a graveyard, and used the phrase "Mad Men," I got horribly mad men. Eventually I found Stable Diffusion and Midjourney and some other app, and things got much better.
But there's always something off, something wrong, an unnerving reliance on teal. Some of these are interesting, though, either because . . . they're good, or the thing they can't understand makes it seem like a dream image
I first learned of James Lileks from his hilariously snarky book "The Gallery of Regrettable Food" and read his blog daily, now celebrating its 25th year.