TOPIC: chatgpt

ROME — In 2017, when Google launched Deep Dream, an artificial intelligence image generator seemingly obsessed with psychedelic dogs, the internet's immediate reaction was curiosity and amusement.

But some people also wondered what would happen as the technology improved. Even from those naïve drawings of dogs, it was clear that it wouldn't take long for more capable neural networks to be developed, powerful enough to draw whatever a user asked.

That time is now. Last summer, as beta versions of AI programs Dall-E, Stable Diffusion and Midjourney (for now, the most effective of the networks), social media was filled with strange drawings. The style was still a bit grainy or dreamy, but immediately recognizable as something novel and significant. This was how the world became familiar with text-to-image software, which can create images based on written or dictated instructions.

At first, the reaction as these programs improved was playful. Illustrators got to know the new tool, as well as writers, including a comic strip written by an author and drawn by Midjourney.

But how do we know that Midjourney and other programs like it are just tools? Francesco D’Isa, artist and philosopher is editor of L’Indiscreto, the first magazine to publish images and stories made with Midjourney. D'Isa is convinced the technology can be useful for art.

Even before debates and controversies erupted around Midjourney and other AI image generators, D’Isa wrote that the programs were just tools, comparable to photography. The first cameras were met with amazement (if not dismay) at the rapidity with which the new medium could produce images. Even then, people feared the new technology would spell the end of painting and illustration. People complained about how easy cameras were to use — something where all "you only had to press a button” could never be art. We know how that turned out.

Still, there are a few obvious differences between photography and programs like Midjourney.