Like most AI-generated software, Bing's new DALL-E3-powered image creator comes with some strict content guidelines. While some asshole on Not Twitter will inevitably whinge about how this is some sort of restriction on free speech, it tends to be more about companies covering their asses—so that users didn't exploit their software to do things like circulate deepfake child porn or brutally violent revenge fantasies.
That's the idea, anyway. But as Samantha Cole at 404Media figured out, there are always some loopholes even within those content guidelines. While Bing's image generator might be programmed to restrict users from generating images of terrorism or violence, you can still use the software to create convincing visual evidence that your favorite cartoon characters crashed a plane into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001.
From 404 Media:
Technically, there's no violence, real people, or even terrorism depicted in these images. It's just Kirby flying a plane with a view. We can fill in the blanks that AI can't. There's also just a ton of memes, shitposts, photos, and illustrations of both the twin towers as they existed for three decades, and plenty of images exist of the inside of plane cockpits, and my beloved Kirby (or any other popular animated character). Putting these together is straightforward enough for Bing, which doesn't understand this context. I can do the same for any character, animated or not, but real names are off limits; Ryan Seacrest won't work in this prompt, for example, but Walter White, Mickey Mouse, Mario, Spongebob, and I assume an infinite number of other fictional characters, animated or live-action, will work:
Bing Is Generating Images of SpongeBob Doing 9/11 [Samantha Cole / 404Media]
