You might have heard about OpenAI’s DALL-E research program.
Or you might have read one of our many articles detailing the awesome things people are doing with this technology.
You can even try it out for yourself if you like, as we recently detailed.
Now DALL-E 2 is moving to other formats and this one is particularly interesting – in addition to demonstrating the possibilities this kind of research enables.
Quantum Mirror, an app for Sony mirrorless cameras created by Nicholas Sherlock, incorporates DALL-E 2’s fundamental features such that the camera seamlessly “dreams up new versions of them, revealing a world-that-might-have-been.”
You can review a sample of his work at this link.
And, as he notes, this app is in violation of DALL-E 2’s terms of service as “DALL-E 2 is still in Beta” and “your account will be banned for using it.” Still, Nicholas plans on releasing a version once DALL-E 2 moves out of beta that will be accessible to everyone sans the aforementioned caveat.
What’s interesting about the DALL-E 2 images in Nicholas Sherlock’s examples is that, while it does a great job at detailing a fantasy landscape, DALL-E 2 struggles when it comes to anything that is inorganic in nature such as a sign. In those examples, the generated creation doesn’t quite approximate text language but, instead, uses a string of characters in a style similar to a printed text of some kind.
The first place where such technology might be absolutely indispensable in speeding up the development process would be video games and Meta’s vaunted metaverse. The output is good enough to be interpreted as some kind of fantasy realm, but wouldn’t fool most of us into thinking it’s an actual real-world example (like here).
All that said, we’re continuing to be impressed with DALL-E 2 and we can’t wait to see what kinds of directions this takes the art of photography and design in the future.
Have you tried out DALL-E 2? Let us know your thoughts on this kind of technology in the comments if you like.
You can read more photography news at this link.
