Always has, always will.
Rock on!
Category: Humor
Words to live by.
Depending on what you read, Artificial Intelligence will either be the greatest advancement in the history of humanity or it will be the end of civilization as we know it. I’m not sure if it will be either of those, but I do know I’ve been having a lot of fun with it. I’ve been using chatGPT, a popular form of AI for a little over a year. I first used it to help me research blog ideas and, for the first time, I used it to edit my most recent post. The text feature is what we most often think about when considering chatGPT, and I’ll talk about that in a future post, but today I want to tell you about DALL-E, a feature available on the enhanced version.
DALL-E is an AI powered image generator that creates original images based on user input. I have always thought the banner illustration for this blog was boring and wanted to create a new one. I tried using stock images but you always run into copyright and fee problems. When I discovered DALL-E, I realized it was the answer to my problem. I just didn’t know how much fun it would be.
My first attempt was to simply enter the command: “Generate images for the home page of a blog titled The Grumpy Doc”. These were the responses I got.
I thought they looked pretty good, but obviously I don’t have a beard so I tried a few more. I entered for him to have gray hair and glasses and be clean shaven. I got what looked like a gray haired 14 year-old with a lab coat and a stethoscope. When I said make him look older, it gave him a gray beard. When I said make the beard go away, it turned it brown. I went through a variety of commands for images in a realistic style and a cartoon style with many various other instructions. The more detailed the instructions you give it, the better images you will get. One caveat, it will not generate images of actual people or of copyrighted material. I probably generated almost 100 images for this project. Here are few of those images.
DALL-E has some trouble depicting human emotion. It doesn’t seem to distinguish between grumpy, angry and just plain mean.
When I asked DALL-E for a whimsical or sly smile, I got this down right goofy look.
Being a hefty guy myself, I asked for The Grumpy Doc to be a little heavier:
Please, no wisecracks about how that looks just like me or you may be in my next blog.
Sometimes the images just don’t make sense. In the image below you will see a stethoscope tube that doesn’t connect to any thing, book titles in no known language and a dial with unrecognizable symbols. Look at some of the above images and you will find many of the same types of mistakes. It is almost like a built-in game.
When asking for text or a title you have to check closely. Sometimes it is fine; other times there are subtle mistakes. One of the pictures above has one of those. See if you can find it. Other times you get something like this:
The one human emotion that DALL-E seems to be fine with is confusion or indecision.
Now what’s that all about?
This was shared by my friend Leigh. The problem of critical thinking summed up in one picture.
New Year’s resolutions aren’t as popular as they used to be, but this is the time of year when we start thinking about all the things we should do, all the things we want to do and all the things we probably won’t do. But wouldn’t it be nice if we could just enroll in a simple, study at home course to gain all those longed for skills?
With that in mind, I’m going to share with you the Adult Self Education Course Catalogue from the Institute for Advanced Self-Delusion. An earlier version was shared with me by my friends Jane and Leigh. Alas, the original author is unknown. I have taken that original and made additions, deletions, and revisions, all to meet my personal needs for self improvement.
Adult Self Education
Institute for Advanced Self-Delusion Course Catalogue
Self-Improvement
SI 101 Creative Suffering
SI 102 Overcoming Peace of Mind
SI 103 Singing for the Tone Deaf
SI 104 Guilt as a Lifestyle
SI 105 The Primal Shrug
SI 106 Ego Gratification Through Apathy
SI 107 Molding Your Child’s Behavior Through Guilt and Fear
SI 108 Dealing with Post Realization Depression
SI 109 Whine Your Way to Alienation
SI 110 How to Overcome Self-doubt Through Pretense and Ostentation
SI 111 Finding Contentment Through Willful Ignorance
Business and Career
BC 101 How I turned a $50,000 Investment into $100 Through Real Estate
BC 102 Money Can Make You Rich
BC 103 Financial Opportunities from Unsolicited Emails
BC 104 Selling Your Unneeded Organs for Profit
BC 105 Underachiever’s Guide to Very Small Business Opportunities
BC 106 Tax Shelters for the Bankrupt
BC 107 Panhandler’s Guide to American Cities
BC 108 Flatulence for Fun and Profit
Arts and Crafts
AC 101 Self-Actualization Through Macramé
AC 102 Cuticle Crafts
AC 103 Bonsai Your Pet
AC 104 Cheap Gifts for the Ungrateful
AC 105 Abstract Stick Figures for the Untalented
AC 106 1001 Uses for Cat Hair
Home Economics
HE 101 Convert Your Vacuum Cleaner into an Automatic Weapon
HE 102 Convert Your Family Room into a Garage
HE 103 Burglar Proof Your Home with Concrete
HE 104 Convert Your Wheelchair into a Dune Buggy
HE 105 How to Tell If Your Smart TV Is Spying on You
HE 106 The Paranoid’s Guide to Alexa
HE 107 Landscaping: An Expensive Way to Feed the Deer
Health and Fitness
HF 101 Creative Tooth Decay
HF 102 The Complete Guide to Sinus Drainage
HF 103 Exorcism and Acne
HF 104 Joys of Hypochondria
HF 105 Living the High Fiber Life
HF 106 Biofeedback and How to Stop
HF 107 Skate Your Way to Regularity
HF 108 Tap Dance Your Way to Social Ridicule
HF 109 Optional Body Functions
HF 110 Why Do Smart People Do Stupid Things and Can They Be Cured?
HF 111 1001 Delicious Recipes for Kale (Never Mind, I Can’t Find Any)
Even More Fun With AI
By John Turley
On June 18, 2024
In Art, Commentary, Humor
Since I’m easily amused, I’m still playing with the AI image generator DALL-E. I wanted to take some time to show you just how easy this is to use. All these images were generated on the requests shown below. The only ones I’ve modified or edited are the ones in the series to demonstrate an edit. You will usually get two versions with each request. You can save either one or both. You can generate up to 50 images a day. I’ve hit my limit more than once.
I generated the image above using the following command. In a cartoon style, generate images of a man dressed as an artist, wearing a beret and a smock, and holding an artist palette and brush. On the easel, have a computer screen with a picture of the same man.
It only takes a little bit of change to get a completely different feel to your pictures. I created the image below basically by saying in a realistic style as opposed to in a cartoon style.
Generate an image in a realistic style of a man dressed as an artist with a smock and beret, holding a palette and a paintbrush and standing in front of an easel with a computer screen in a messy studio.
Now, let your imagination soar and see what you can come up with. I’m going to make up a few commands now and see what develops.
In a surrealistic style generate images of a young boy with pale green skin and feathers on his arms soaring with fantastical eagles over a fantasy landscape of canyons and forests.
In a realistic style, generate images of an African American woman in a sophisticated business suit and carrying a briefcase. Place her in a whimsical background with fantasy creatures, such as elves, fairies, and unicorns.
In a steampunk style, generate images of a doctor examining a patient with a stethoscope. Have the patient have a third eye in the middle of his forehead.
In an abstract style, generate images of a man and a woman sitting in chairs facing each other. Have the man smoking a cigar and have the woman with purple hair.
In a style reminiscent of the French impressionists, generate images of young people in colorful outfits, dancing on an outside patio.
In a cubist style generate images of baseball players.
DALL-E offers the capability to edit your pictures. However, as you’ll see from the series below it actually generates new pictures with slight variations based on your requests for edit.
In a cartoon style generate images of a young man walking down a sidewalk on a sunny day. Have him in a suburban neighborhood with trees and flowers and well tended lawns and houses.
Change the neighborhood to urban with cars parked on the street and the sky overcast.
So far, the changes seem to be fairly consistent and go along with the general style we requested. Let’s make a couple of big changes and see what happens.
Have him look disheveled and scruffy. Make the neighborhood run down with trash in the streets. Have him carry a whiskey bottle and a cigarette.
I think it’s right on with this one. It got the feel I was looking for.
Now for my last picture, I’m going to let my imagination run wild and try to come up with these strangest and most bizarre images I can imagine and see if DALL-E matches or exceeds my ideas.
In a dystopian style with a post-apocalyptic background, generate images of an emaciated Santa Claus jumping rope while talking to an Easter Bunny with vampire fangs and a leprechaun with claws. Add any other menacing characters you think may be appropriate.
I couldn’t decide which one I liked best, so I decided to use them both. I’m not sure what it says about me that I like these images.
I couldn’t resist trying one more edit. I asked DALL-E to generate the above image in cartoon style. It sent me this response: I encountered some issues while trying to generate the cartoon-style images. Please let me know if you would like to try a different request or if there’s anything else I can assist you with. Perhaps it thought cartoon style would attract children and the subject matter was a little too ghoulish for kids. After tweaking the prompt a couple of times, I got the following image:
Maybe they were right the first time.
Give it a try. I think you’ll have as much fun as I do.
Doctor’s orders!