Visual Trends in AI Art

Why AI-Generated Images Look Like the Stuff of Nightmares

AI images are less like paintings and more like funhouse mirrors

Vice / DeepDream

DeepDream provokes a question that is perhaps even more disturbing than the raw abjection of the images: is this really how AIs see the world?

Dall-E Images created from the work “Identity” by @abstractdalle on Twitter
Fictional Nintendo GameBoy food processor prompt by Randall Munroe rendered by Dall-E 7/16/22

Images generated in this manner are less like paintings than they are like mirrors, reflecting our own views and values back to us, albeit through a very elaborate prism. For this reason, we need to be wary when we look at these pictures of the limits and prejudices contained that these models show.

Artist Mimi Onuoha stated the problem eloquently in her essay “On Algorithmic Violence”:

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Banks Endowed Chair AI and the Arts, Digital Worlds Institute, University of Florida | USDAC: Honor Native Land | studioamelia.com | She/Her | Artist

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Amelia Winger-Bearskin

Banks Endowed Chair AI and the Arts, Digital Worlds Institute, University of Florida | USDAC: Honor Native Land | studioamelia.com | She/Her | Artist