We have all likely heard the adage that “a picture is worth a 1000 words” but given the development of AI-based image generating algorithms, can this well known adage be inverted? Can fewer than 1000 words create an interesting picture?
The relatively new phenomena of AI image generators is an intriguing new frontier and as such naturally I asked Chat GPT to tell me all about it!
The specific application I explored was to explore what a picture of an amateur radio operator would look like if generated through an AI algorithm based on various samples of text describing amateur radio.
As a starting place some readily accessible standard text sources describing what amateur radio is were drawn from the Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC) website, Wikipedia as well as a more free-form approach using a small number of words.
This little inquiry started with my daughter Maggie providing me with access to her paid up subscription to Midjourney available through Discord. At the Midjourney prompt of “/imagine” I used the key word instructions “portrait” and “photograph” along with some descriptive text to generate the images that appear below.
Starting with RAC’s description of “What is Amateur Radio?”and further playing up the importance of the slogan “if you can see it you can be it” Midjourney focuses on the gender pronoun used in a 254 word sample from RAC’s description of “What is Amateur Radio?” to generate images, including the ones below. Along these lines there is some interesting history in the “YL Sparks Stories” on the RCA web site.
Interestingly, if you take the 254 word description from the RAC web-site and Google-translate it into French and then run it through the Midjourney algorithm, two male and two female images are generated including the following images.
Once again, if you take the 254 word description from the RAC web-site and Google-translate it into Spanish and then run it through the algorithm, only male images appear including the following images.
When I engaged Midjourney with the 262 word description of Amateur Radio available from Wikipedia, the male image below was among those generated.
Other images of amateur radio operators generated by Midjourney when the words “Canadian” or “white beard” get added to the standard “imagine” (i.e., /imagine) prompts of “portrait and photograph” with the words “amateur radio operator” resulting in the following images among many variations.
What do you think of these representations? Do you feel you might even “know” some of these folks or possibly have met them at a ham-fest somewhere? Certainly the operating environments or “shacks” have an air of authenticity about them.
Anyway hope you have enjoyed this inquiry.
73, Alan VA3IAH