Editor’s note: I recently discovered a site called ruDALL-E which is an artificial intelligence image generator, and just one of many platforms emerging in the still-developing sphere of text to images technology. For a more detailed overview of this tech see here Many of the platforms offer a free basic user experience, but if you subscribe you can gain access to advanced features.
The DALL-E demo I’ve been using responds to entered keywords by delivering unique AI-generated images… useful for writers and artists (like me) who enjoy blogging poetry and flash fiction then illustrating with digital images.
Today I’m pleased to publish my first experiment of writing a piece of prose for the Six Sentence Stories blog hop using the DALL-E machine as my illustrator. This week’s cue word of JUNK prompted me to write The Gold in your Soul. After, I entered keywords from the narrative into the DALL-E demo and attempted to match a number of generated images to the story – in effect, a title then an image for each sentence.
After an intriguing, surprising and enjoyable few hours experimenting with different words and their combinations, I’m pleased to present the results. All images featured are exactly how DALL-E delivered them to me, and though there is scope for further digital enhancement from my part, I’ve left them as they are.
The Gold in your Soul
It’s sometimes said: One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.
The brutal irony of discovering that the email ending the relationship had been sent to the junk folder… your heart now turned to iron and hauled upon the scrap heap of unwanted lovers.
You’re growing skinny, not eating, have lost interest in all which once inspired you, and for what… love’s cruel letter giving you notice, with no refund nor compensation for injury?
Yet, you still have that glimmer in your eyes, that spark that says hey, it’s me.
One morning, as the sun rises, a ray of light frames you as a golden seam within the earth into which you have undertaken hibernation, a golden seam you are, you are, a golden seam you are.
The clip of heels greets this new day, and the chiming of tools… words to work wonders and unearth your trinket bones; how you shake off the granules of soil which have weighed on your shoulders, how you smile at the treasure hunter before you who sees love in your eyes and the gold in your soul.
Image for title. Keywords: Gold-Soul.
Image 1. Keywords: One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.
Image 2. Keywords: Iron-Brutal-Heart.
Image 3. Keywords: Skinny-Love.
Image 4. Keywords: Glimmer-Eye.
Image 5. Keywords: Sun-Golden-Seam.
Image 6. Keywords: Love-Gold-Bones.
Conclusion:
The DALL-E generator at it’s free demo point of use is fast, and can generate an image in under two minutes. The machine offered some very surprising and abstract results, including some disturbing and nightmarish images (see the “Glimmer-Eye” returns in the gallery below!). I was especially pleased with the title image for which I entered “Gold-Soul.” The DALL-E machine seemed to respond better to fewer keywords rather than a large body of text, though I was pleased with the result I gained for “One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.”
Here are some of the other images DALL-E returned to me, which I opted not to use in my experiment. As you can see, entering the same keywords will provide a unique result each time.
Just for fun!
Most of the keyword structures I entered were abstract, so it’s hardly surprising the images returned were abstract. However, type in something simple like “Black Cat” and you get, erm… some very odd-looking cats.
Oh well, it’s early days and I guess DALL-E is still learning how to draw.
How about something even simpler than a black cat…
… an egg!
DALL-E… now draw me a chicken!
DALL-E… which came first, the chicken or the egg?
And finally, DALL-E, draw me Ringo Starr saying: “I am the Walrus”…
Here are some results from a test I made based on the previous week’s SSS and three keywords I took from Denise’s editorial. The words were: ‘Voltaire’, ‘Guide’ and ‘Six’. The DALL-E machine often incorporates a Russian-style text depending on certain keywords you use.
The Gold in your Soul by Ford. December 15. 2021.
The Gold in your Soul images by ruDALL-E
The Atomic Mage 
Wow Wooof! is looking rough in some of Dall-E’s images I have to say. Some of those images are a bit out there (though some of the Glimmer Eyes were sorta Blade Runner-esque).
I think I’d be scared to try this new app out as I already design my sabers, knock up Lego builds and do digital picture editing….this could be a wormhole I might never climb out of if I entered!
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Lol, Wooof is currently cowering behind the sofa as I show him those cat pics! 😀
I only discovered the programme two weeks back and have just spent much of the past two days down that wormhole you mention…
The results are pretty amazing as they stand, but imagine then spending time re-working them with picture editing? The possibilities are surely (or will be) endless!
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Hi there, well I took a gamble and had a quick play with ruDall-E and let’s say the results were interesting! I entered “lightsaber” and a couple of glowy stick and handgrip like images came up…but when I typed my name as the prompt I got a picture of the rear quarter of a car! (Though admittedly a luxury car 😎 maybe I’m in line to win some money soon?)
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Haha, bravo FT, I was certain you wouldn’t be able to resist having a little play with it!
I found I had to be very patient and keep pushing for the best images I wanted, as many of the returns were just too random or bizarre. Ultimatley though, with persistence, DALL-E certainly delivered the goods in illustrating my prose for this week’s 6SS!
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Well now dear Mage, the spells are beginning to manifest across realms eeh? 🧙♂️🔮
I see processing hybrid hearts working under the seams… your AI opus expands in an unexpected, fascinating or terrifying (depending in the pov) way!!
What I find most intriguing is that your analysis of the ” experiment” leads me to see these primary results of Dall-E as a behind the curtain peek of the inner workings of an entity towards being…
Love it.
(Back to my old habit:
Ayreon, Sea of Machines from their album The Source.)
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Dear Wizard, it’s been an experience trying to understand and work with this (still in its infancy) tech these past two weeks…
Frightening and amazing all at once. There can never be a substitute for the art which comes from our hearts and minds and hands (you know exactly what I’m saying, right) but this new interaction between words and images is intriguing.
You’re right, since writing my AI story recently it seems every other news story I read right now concerns AI…
A peek behind the curtains is spot on. If something like DALL-E can create what it creates right now… what will it be capable of when it finishes art school?
Will check out Ayreon soon!
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“…we’re not alone…”
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Milady ” …I’ve seen the future on a dream…”
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#in#
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Love your writing and the images you chose – bit scared and put off by the other results, though, not sure Dall-E is for me just yet.
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Thanks, Wibi. Have to say some of the images I rejected were really too disturbing or freaky even for my horror-loving self lol. Maybe they might work for a horror telling later I don’t know.
I was surprised each time a new image was generated – some beautiful, others just crazy. Amazing technology!
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So cool & cutting edge. You do love to stretch those boundaries.
May have to try DALL-E, but only in the daylight hours…
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Thanks, Liz. When I discovered it just a couple of weeks ago, I knew it would be perfect to experiment with on the Six Sentence Stories.
Yes!! Only try it in daylight hours… some of the images are just crazy! 🤪😵🥴😲
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Wow, that’s one heck of a rabbit hole to disappear down! Actually, DALL-E did draw a rather passable rabbit for me. The chickens and the cats are definitely disturbing – Luna just ran from the room howling (although that might have been for an entirely different reason). Fave sentence/image: Sun-Golden-Seam… bathing in that glorious golden light!
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That’s cool you had a little play, Chris! It’s fascinating tech, and still in its infancy – so will only get bettter in time.
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I need look no further when seeking to prevaricate!
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wow! just wow!
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Thanks! Just thanks!
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I like how you combined each line of the story with a generated image. Also it was ironic that the email ending the relationship wound up in the spam, trash or junk folder.
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Thanks Frank. That was my fave line… how a dejection letter went into the junk email.
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But is it art?
Your text was very poetic. I especially liked the final sentence, the renewal, the unearthed treasure.
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Thanks D. No, it’s not art as we know it, but it is art in as much as the machine relies on being fed information, like how we humans do throughout the course of our lives. If we react to something because we already have some pre-conceived ideas about it… then a machine will do the same.
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‘Holy Rorschach, Atomic Mage!’*
And this (the post) is why I can’t stay away from the Six Sentence Cafe and Bistro open mic night.
(Who doesn’t love synchronicity… this week in the ‘Hey! Let’s try something really different.’ The post here… Dude!)
Have to mull the AI art. Not being an art guy I don’t know that I’m qualified to judge.
That said, you mentioned in one of the comments, if something (an image, a drawing, a song) elicits a response from a human, its source becomes less and less important. And I’ll challenge anyone to claim the artist is indifferent to the reaction of the viewers.
*at last, a value derived, remembered trope from the 1960s TV series.
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And if I may emphasize on your words:
not only that, but I always say to the people who come in contact with my art that they are qualified to interact without needing a PhD on the subject; if it “speaks ” to them then “art happens” in the following inner/outer discussion.
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We totally, like, concur, yo
(The highest compliment to artifacts of my own art jones, fiction? “Engaging from the first paragraph”)
Hell, the verb says it all… to engage
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Well said. Totally agree how “art happens” in this way.
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Thanks, Clark. The 6SS café and bistro nights are the perfect place to jam out these experiments I have (see also my serial story ‘magic mushroom’ episode for I. They. Evolve.).
As for being qualified to judge art? Nah, not here, no qualifications required, only a personal perspective which the artist welcomes.
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A terrific piece made all the more so by the images! I’m intrigued, must go and explore.
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Thanks, Keith. It’s an interesting and fun experience playing about with the programme.
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Get thee to a gallery, TAM, before you start trying to get aye-ayes to play Mozart and AI’s to write novels. 😉
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Cheers Doug. The scary thing is that AI has already been used to ‘write’ songs and lyrics by dead artists like Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, Morrison and Hendrix (the 27 club). See here: https://www.republicworld.com/technology-news/other-tech-news/new-nirvana-song-drowned-in-the-sun-uses-ai-to-bring-kurt-kobains-musical-style-back.html
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I know and they are an abomination.
Leviticus 18:29
For whoever does any of these abominations, those persons who do so shall be cut off from among their people.
😉
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Altogether some fascinating words and images!
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Thank you Mimi.
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Irony or self-aware, intuitive computer/phone wishing to be savior from hurt and sadness? Machines to care and watch over us? Machine’s love sonnet to “owner”? With trepidation should we move forward. OK, some other tangent is tapping my shoulder, I digress, lol
Love the title, V, and sentence 5, “…words to work wonders and unearth your trinket bones;…” It is true of art, as Spira reminds us in his comment to Clark, if a piece speaks to us, “art happens”.
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Thanks, D. Cool, I love it when “tangents come tapping at our shoulder” as you say 😎
“Trinket bones” is nice isn’t it. Thank you 🙂
And agree totally with the comments about how “art happens”. It does.
It’s good that there was a mariage between art and words like how I experimented with this week, and perfect that the 6SS was the ideal ‘lab’ in which to test it!
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Ideal, indeed. 6SS = creativity’s playground, performance theater and café rolled into one 😎
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What a strange technology! I’m sure you can spend hours with that … I’ve tried kitsch and garden gnome — creepy. I may just look at the cats again
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