AI vs. Artists?

This past summer, a new viral craze swept the internet. People were using an online tool called Dall-E Mini to generate weird—and often funny—images almost instantly, like the one above right. Some of them quickly became memes. Dall-E Mini uses artificial intelligence (AI) that mimics how humans learn. You might have played around with Dall-E Mini, but did you know it’s based on a more advanced version of the program, called Dall-E?

Dall-E is named after WALL-E, the robot from the Pixar movie, and Salvador Dalí, the famous Surrealist artist. The AI system produces high-quality images that are indistinguishable from those of actual photographers, illustrators, and graphic designers. Dall-E analyzes and draws connections between hundreds of millions of captioned images, similar to how a human studies flash cards. Then it uses what it learns to generate entirely new, professional-looking images.

For the image above, editors of Cosmopolitan magazine typed a description into Dall-E. Then, in seconds, it created the Cosmopolitan cover image you see here. As this technology continues to evolve, some people are thinking about how AI will impact artists and designers.

Dall-E’s abilities have both impressed and concerned the public. Some artists worry that Dall-E could replace the need for human artists. But supporters think it will provide artists with exciting creative avenues and new jobs that combine art and technology. “With AI, we are about to enter a period of massive change in all fields,” says Karen X. Cheng, a digital editor working with Cosmopolitan’s team. “Many people will lose their jobs. At the same time, there will be an explosion of creativity and possibility and new jobs being created.”