Hello readers,
Parker here. Let’s talk about generative AI.
The past year has been pretty wild when it comes to the world of “AI” image generators. Whatever one’s thoughts on various aspects of the technology itself
, I think it’s important to acknowledge just how much these tolls have improved since I first started playing around with this sort of tech last March.
Here are two images, both created using Midjourney’s generative AI tool and the prompt “Donald Trump and Barack Obama playing basketball.” The first one was made in March 2022 using Midjourney’s “version 1;” the second was created in March 2023 using Midjourney’s new “version 5.” As you can see, when it comes to photorealism, it’s getting pretty good (and that may soon be a bad thing).
Yes, there are still ways to tell that these images are fake
. Even so, in less than a year, this technology has gone from sputtering out images of basketball-playing blob characters who vaguely resemble Trump and Obama to consistently being able to put out a pretty passable image of the two of them playing basketball. Where will things be a year from now? Two years from now?
Yes, people have been editing photos with Photoshop and similar apps for a long time, but tools like Midjourney make it much easier for everyday people to do this.
Over at his excellent
newsletter, Ryan Broderick has a really interesting piece about what he’s calling “the era of good enough generative AI”:
I’ve been documenting my struggle with defining the AI arms race and I suppose the closest approximation to where we are now I can offer based on where we’ve been is probably the moment apps like Photoshop, platforms like Google Maps, and services like Wikipedia suddenly became good enough. I’m old enough to remember not only the first time I used printed out MapQuest directions to follow on a long drive, but, also, the first time I didn’t have to anymore. And in both instances, the tech I was relying on became good enough to get done what I needed to be done. What’s disorienting is that that process once took years. And AI services have gone from a fun novelty to good enough in, let’s be real, less than a year. And I suspect that’s why it’s taking the general public so long to really grasp it. I think AI is honestly evolving faster than the human brain can really process. Which I’d find scary, if I didn’t mostly just find it annoying.
“Good enough,” but for what? To create epic works of art or recreations of photos that experts can’t verify or debunk? No, the technology isn’t there. But to fool a bunch of people on the internet? Absolutely. And that’s what worries me. Because, hey, not sure if you’ve noticed, but it doesn’t take much to fool people on the internet — especially when what you’re trying to fool them with confirms their existing beliefs.
A few days ago, Bellingcat’s Eliot Higgins started generating fake images of Trump getting arrested. He even created a whole story to go along with it.
Trump runs from the police, Don Jr. and Melania yell at the cops. Trump is thrown into a jail cell. He stands trial, Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels testify against him. He is found guilty, his family grieves, and he goes to prison. There, he works, reads, and plays basketball. He escapes through a tunnel and runs to a McDonald’s.
Higgins, an investigative journalist, says that his Midjourney account has been suspended. BuzzFeed News reported on this:
As a result, he said on Wednesday, Midjourney appeared to have banned him from the service. Midjourney did not immediately respond to a request for comment. (The word “arrested” is now banned on the platform.)
Higgins, 44, told BuzzFeed News that he’s “been playing around with various prompts to see what's possible and how complex you can make it. ” He prompted Midjourney to capture what it would look like if Trump were swept up by police on the streets of New York outside of a building that looks eerily like Trump Tower, how his children would react, and what his life would be like in jail.
“They kind of formed a narrative and I thought it was really amusing,” said Higgins, who is based in the UK. “I put it out there. I didn't intend to do any clever criticism or anything like that. But then it kind of took on a life of its own.” The tweets have since been picked up by various media outlets, including Infowars: “Bellingcat Journo Uses AI to Fantasize About Trump Getting Arrested Before His Crying Family.” Others on Twitter were fooled into thinking they were actual images from Trump’s arrest.
He was hardly alone in his Trump creations. Below are just a handful of pictures I found when searching Midjourney’s website. It’s to the point where websites like Snopes, the Associated Press, and PolitiFact have put out fact-checks about the pictures.
Here’s a bonus collection of absurd Trump-related creations on Midjourney.