Huh: this photo doesn’t really exist!

You are looking at a photo that was never actually taken with a camera. No, this photo was created with Google’s AI service Imagen.

The world is working hard with large-scale help from artificial intelligence. Self-made intelligence must at some point be able to take over many tasks and thus become much smarter. The way it is done now, put very simply, is by adding existing elements to the computer in such a way that patterns provide new results.

Google Imagen

A good example of this is Imagen, a new project supported by Google. This is an AI program that can convert text into a photo. Ergo, you enter what you want to see, and a photo is generated with that in it. The examples below are therefore not real photos, but images composed by AI. For example, the input would be ‘two robots having dinner in front of the Eiffel Tower’. Or ‘chrome duck with a tortoiseshell looking at it in amazement’. Or ‘Teddy Bear Olympic Swimming Competition’. Just made up myself. Special!

AI photos

This technique has been around for some time, but Google has managed to make it uniquely realistic with Imagen. Only some details are a bit strange, just look at the taxi in the photo at the top of this article. Nevertheless, this is where more and more emphasis will be placed in the future. Do you see it?

Try it yourself

You can also try it yourself. On the Google Imagen website (scroll down a bit) you can choose from subjects, places, details and other things, to create a unique photo for each choice. Fun, but also dangerous, because things that aren’t there can also create situations that aren’t there. With crime in mind, that’s one thing.