I’ve been continuing my efforts to try to break down DALL-E. Bing Image Creator uses DALL-E and has rapidly increased the quality of its output. I’ve been finding that the more complicated the prompt I throw at it the worse the output looks. Let’s look at some examples.

We start with the prompt: “A female fitness enthusiast visiting her college’s computer lab”

Picture generated by the prompt "A female fitness enthusiast visiting her college's computer lab"

Okay, that’s fairly reasonable. Now we can start messing with complexity. Let’s change the prompt to this: “A female fitness enthusiast visiting her university’s computer lab”

Picture generated by the prompt "A female fitness enthusiast visiting her university's computer lab"

Okay, still doing okay. Now to start getting weird. We try this prompt: “A female soccer enthusiast visiting her university’s computer lab”

Picture generated by the prompt "A female soccer enthusiast visiting her university's computer lab"

Well, not too weird. Let’s try Calvinball. That’s not real. It was made up by a cartoonist down in Chagrin Falls. What will the AI do?

Picture generated by the prompt "A female calvinball enthusiast visiting her university's computer lab"

A female calvinball enthusiast visiting her university’s computer lab

Well, that definitely looks cartoonish. How about we bring it back towards reality with mintonette?

Picture generated by the prompt "A female beach volleyball enthusiast visiting her university's computer lab"

A female beach volleyball enthusiast visiting her university’s computer lab

Okay, still within the realm of reason. Let’s try fantasy then!

Picture generated by the prompt "tall lanky half-elf female fitness enthusiast with a day job as a cleric in Wildemount who is running an obstacle course"

tall lanky half-elf female fitness enthusiast with a day job as a cleric in Wildemount who is running an obstacle course

It almost looks like video game assets that got ripped off or even stolen there.

Once you start adding complexity in the realm of fantasy the outputs starting getting weirder. Trying the prompt “A half-dwarf female fitness enthusiast from Wildemount who has day jobs as both a cleric for The Changebringer and as a bard” gives you this:

Picture generated by the prompt "A half-dwarf female fitness enthusiast from Wildemount who has day jobs as both a cleric for The Changebringer and as a bard"

Or then you try “A half-dwarf female fitness enthusiast from Wildemount who has a day job as a cleric for both The Changebringer and The Traveler” and get this:

Picture generated by the prompt "A half-dwarf female fitness enthusiast from Wildemount who has a day job as a cleric for both The Changebringer and The Traveler"

Yet a prompt of “A half-dwarf female fitness enthusiast from Wildemount who has a day job as a cleric for both The Changebringer and The Dawn Father” brings you something like this:

Picture generated by the prompt "A half-dwarf female fitness enthusiast from Wildemount who has a day job as a cleric for both The Changebringer and The Dawn Father"

In another prompt you start to see the SARMS Goblin show up. The prompt is: “A half-dwarf female fitness enthusiast from Wildemount who has a day job as a cleric for The Changebringer who is visiting a friendly human witch who is also a very tall female fitness enthusiast.”

Picture generated by the prompt "A half-dwarf female fitness enthusiast from Wildemount who has a day job as a cleric for The Changebringer who is visiting a friendly human witch who is also a very tall female fitness enthusiast."

The outputs on this prompt were certainly strange: “A half-dwarf female fitness enthusiast from Wildemount who has a day job as a cleric for The Changebringer who is visiting a friendly female fitness enthusiast at the academy of magic.”

Picture generated by the prompt "A half-dwarf female fitness enthusiast from Wildemount who has a day job as a cleric for The Changebringer who is visiting a friendly female fitness enthusiast at the academy of magic."

Starting with a simple prompt and making it increasingly absurd didn’t work in terms of breaking things. Back to the drawing board, I guess. Testing the limits of this tech does help when I have to deal with students asking questions about Generative AI. I can’t always just show them Synthetic Summer and say that this tech creates monstrosities. It is constantly changing and society is really, really not ready for the implications of what may result.