If we were talking to you about artificial intelligence, certain images would probably come naturally to your mind, more or less autonomous machines for example, or Terminator for the most catastrophic. However, what is called “artificial intelligence” is capable of many things beyond what is for the moment only the fruit of distant fantasies, and this has been demonstrated in recent months by Tiktokeurs through image generators created by artificial intelligences, including one named Midjourney. And the results are sometimes as frightening as they are enjoyable.
- Official discord dedicated to Midjourney
Last selfies before the end of the world
It was on the Discord dedicated to Midjourney that a user chose to have him portray one of the most dreaded events by human beings for a long time, probably its very origins: the end of the world. To do this, he asked her to draw what the last selfies taken might look like as the world we know is fading away.
The result is at least disturbing, at worst frightening according to individuals. We naturally see a human being in close-up, the principle of the selfie, but we notice quite easily that something is not right on the first “shot”. The crowd behind this apparently happy being seems to be fleeing from something, or someone.
By paying more attention to these drawings, we notice that these three selfies would have in fact been captured by the same person in the same place but a few minutes apart. Thus, if we see a semblance of happiness on the first drawing despite the obvious escape of a crowd gathered there because of an event that is a priori important, while the person in the foreground seems disconnected from reality to the point of offering himself a little selfie, the next two images are much less auspicious. This first fake shot also seems to ironically depict the absurdity of human behavior in certain extreme situations, having fun and trying at all costs to “create the buzz” without really being aware of what is happening to it.
The second image, in the center, seems to depict this crowd during the apocalypse itself. Naturally, the supposed protagonist’s displayed enthusiasm has vanished from his face and everything around him seems to have been reduced to ashes. Him included by the way. Thick black smoke emerges in the background, and the crowd that we already imagined in panic on the first shot has given way to a tide of emaciated beings in perdition. Despair and incomprehension are blatant on this image, much more than on the previous one… But also the next one!
The third and last selfie seems to depict the situation just after the apocalypse (whose origin, moreover, we do not know, although we can imagine it quite easily). If the euphoria of the first drawing is not back and although we understand that the “protagonist” and the crowd of which he was a part are all dead, this “cliché” seems to testify to the condition in which they all find themselves. these beings: their end was inevitable, they remained spectators of the end of the world and take us as witnesses of it through these selfies. However, one thing seems obvious: they are appeased, the worst is behind them… Forever.
Anxiogenic tendency of a harmless tool
Although particularly disturbing, this type of drawing actually has little concrete meaning. This artificial intelligence generates images thanks to the knowledge it has accumulated through various means, in particular and probably what we find on the internet for example. The problem is that the mere fact of placing the words “artificial intelligence” somewhere is enough to give the reader or the spectator the feeling that a semblance of divinity has spoken holy words whose veracity is proven and indisputable. It is in any case the feeling that one has when one reads the comments of the Net surfers in response to this type of request.
However, this is not the case: these artificial intelligences that we can see exploited for a little while already for more or less anxiety-provoking purposes only draw their inspiration from the knowledge accumulated by human beings according to the prism of Internet. The end of the world, the meaning of life… Subjects as vast as they are unfathomable and for which there is (to date) no absolute and universal answer. Thus, these AIs must be taken for what they are: generators of particularly successful and sometimes surprising images, certainly not for prophecies. They respond to a request according to the subjects in vogue at the time of the request, and it is a safe bet that if the same thing had been requested even a few decades earlier then the result would have been different. Very different !
To demonstrate this, we have chosen to offer you some of the drawings that this same artificial intelligence has produced on many different themes depending on the terms used for each of these requests. You are challenged to consider that Van Gogh and Erdogan were once contemporaries of each other.
“Bombay in 200 years”
“Gardens of the future”
“Realistic Minecraft”
“A dinosaur fleeing a huge alien”
“Van Gogh and Recep Tayyip Erdogan”
“Beautiful hyper-realistic alien woman”
“Angel Gabriel”
Finally, if they are nothing more than amazing but not far-sighted designers, these artificial intelligences can undoubtedly be a good way to rethink our own operating methods. In the end, don’t we have an incredible chance to see ourselves as human beings according to our own behavior but from the “eyes” of an entity outside our own society?
nintendo
A fan had fun with the graphic assets of Super Mario 64 to create an experience close to survival-horror, with a castle haunted by Princess Peach herself. Will you be able to collect all the statuettes in the domain?