Let’s See What Artificial ‘Intelligence’ Thinks Good Valentine’s Day Car Images Look Like

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As you probably know, it’s not only Ash Wednesday, but also Valentine’s Day! Two days about whatever Ash Wednesday is about and love, or something! I get that Ash Wednesday is a real, serious holiday, but let’s be honest: Valentine’s Day has become a marketing ploy, for the most part. So, with that in mind, let’s do something as inexperienced, plastic and artificial as much of what Valentine’s Day has become: let’s get AI involved, why not? And some cars.

Here at Autopian, we will never use AI for stories or crucial art about specific cars, partly for ethical reasons and partly because, as a computer, AI algorithms are clueless. that they are producing. They have no idea whether the story they are writing is true or not, and if the AI generates an image of a car, it doesn’t know if it is getting crucial details right or wrong. We can’t use it.

But we certainly can play with AI and see how it handles multiple requests because, frankly, it’s interesting. Much of how these things work are still black boxes; we do not In fact I understand what the hell is going on there in those huge nests of “if, then, else” statements. And often the results are interesting.

So, with that in mind, I asked my wife Sally, who has been playing with Halfway through the trip, to ask the AI to create some Valentine’s Day images based on cars. The only limitation I imposed on myself was to ask for cars that were common on the Internet, so that the AI would have many image references. steal from, yesIt’s just that every time I ask for something darker, they give me profoundly wrong looking cars. So we’ll keep it simple.

So, I started her off with a car that I know is very well represented online: a Volkswagen Beetle. Sally added appropriate Valentine’s Day descriptors and the AI did its thing. So let’s see what we have:

Vday1

First, I can see that the AI is getting better at a lot of things, including the way it renders VW Beetles. These are decent beetles! The headlights in the upper left quadrant appear these aftermarket units that were popular for pre-’67 Beetles decades ago, and most of the others seem to have sealed beams, along with those horn grilles, making the cars roughly resemble ’67 Beetles. But without the big bumpers.

All the cars are a deep cherry red color, which is on brand, but the strange little cherubs and angelic beings are still pretty creepy. Let’s take a closer look at some of them:

Vday2

What the hell is going on between the two cars? That is that bloody mass of puttimeat? And what’s going on with those weird, skinny guys in their pajamas lounging on the hood of the car on the left? This is rare. Let’s look at another one:

Vdy3

Again, nice Beetles, even with well-rendered bumper mounts, but what kind of monster crawls through the vent window? That’s hard to even look at! And who is the weird shirtless guy on the roof?

Vday4

Let’s try another batch. These are pinker Beetles, still decent, but in the top right image there’s some weird stuff going on with the arms, and the proportions of the bottom right representation are oddly narrow and tall. I wish I understood how decisions were made like using vertical slats on the speaker grilles (correct) or horizontal (incorrect, but some aftermarket parts did that).

Let’s try another popular car. A Miata!

Vday5

Hmm. Once again, the cars are expertly rendered, even with the Mazda logo remaining fairly intact, and the AI is often bad at that. Lots of pink smoke and clouds, and at least one woman emerging from the hood of the car. What’s up with that Dionysian figure in the background in the upper right corner? Zoom in and get better!

Vday Miata2

Hey, what’s that? Some sort of matronly robotic figure? All of this is still somewhat disturbing. Let’s try something less pink and more Camaros:

Vday7

Oh yeah! It looks like a circa 1970 Camaro, often with dual turn indicator types, which is fine by me. I think the biggest issue here is revealing the fact that the AI has no real idea of how big people or dogs are compared to cars. Also, it’s worth noting that the message was not asking for a dog in any way. Somehow the AI decided the dog was necessary. Sometimes giant dogs and giant women.

These are all technically impressive, in many, many ways, and this technology is definitely an exciting development. It’s also still weird and creepy and, if I’m honest, I hope that part never changes. Happy Giant Lady and Dog Day!

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