Have you ever wondered what Rambo would look like playing the violin? How about Arnold Schwarzenegger at a tea party? Well, thanks to the new viral sensation, DALL-E mini, you can finally behold such masterpieces.
DALL-E mini is an AI art generator that’s been taking over TikTok and Twitter with its impressive, if not hilarious, results. If you’ve never heard of AI-generated art, it might take a minute to wrap your head around the concept, but it’s really as simple as it sounds. The name is a play on words, combining the Spanish artist Salvador Dalí with the Disney robot WALL-E.
To get your very own masterpiece, you simply type in a description of what you want the image to look like and DALL-E mini will generate a corresponding image, although with varying results that may or may not leave you chuckling.
TikTok and Twitter users have been sharing their own magnum opi with the world, and the results are just as you’d expect. One user felt it vital to know how exactly Kermit the frog would look if painted by Munch and so had DALL-E mini create just that.
Another user wondered how Bruce Willis would look like eating a yogurt, because, you know, you can never have too much Bruce Willis (or yogurt).
Star Wars fans were tempted by the possibility of seeing Darth Maul eating a hot dog at Costco, because what fan doesn’t want to see Darth Maul eating a hot dog at Costco?
So, how exactly do you use DALL-E mini?
To get your very own magnum opus, you just go to the Hugging Face website (pictured above) and type in whatever masterpiece you want to see into the search engine, however outrageous, and watch DALL-E mini go to work.
For example, if you type in “a cat riding a unicorn,” you’ll get an image of exactly that, although you can add “a cat riding a unicorn in space” to spice things up, or “a cat riding a unicorn at the top of a rainbow” to really get the full effect. DALL-E mini knows no bounds.
What’s really made the AI art generator such a phenomenon is how distorted and warped the generated images turn out. Part of the fun is not only coming up with silly combinations, but seeing how outlandish the results look.
What’s the difference between DALL-E mini and DALL-E?
A quick Google search of DALL-E will offers varying results, and that’s because DALL-E mini and DALL-E are two different AI machines, although both fall under the same umbrella of AI-generated art. It’s unclear how or why there is a DALL-E mini and a DALL-E, but DALL-E mini operates under the website Hugging Face and DALL-E operates under the website Openai.com.
DALL-E provides much more realistic, and less humorous, results. Recently, Openai.com upgraded their AI system to DALL-E 2 and the results are even more realistic than before. You can search for a monkey paying its taxes or a polar bear playing the bass, and your results will not be distorted and warped, but clear and startling. To use DALL-E 2, you need to go to Openai’s website and join the waitlist.
It’s obvious that DALL-mini’s hilarious results lend itself to going viral more than DALL-E 2’s realistic approach. TikTok and Twitter seem to agree as well, as the outpouring of AI-generated art has taken over both social media platforms. Clearly, AI-generated art gives us a chuckle and pushes the boundaries of what AI can do, but the clear winner here is our outrageous human creativity, embodied in the genius pairing of Darth Maul and Costco frankfurter. AI can’t hold a candle to that.