MidJourney and the Advent of "Text to Museum Quality Art"?
No doubt you've seen them. The odd cultural mashups. The current pop stars rendered in Renaissance style. The not-quite-deep-fake, but what are these images?
The past few months have seen AI image generation engines tip into the mainstream. From DALL-E to MidJourney. Each operates on the same principle of analyzing millions of web images, and then spitting out a custom amalgamation as the result of a user's text prompt.
The results are stunning. Worrisome? Controversial?
This is clearly something new going on. And it's so early that we can't predict the implications. Does this spell the end of fine artists as we know them? Is this the next phase in the machines are taking our jobs on their way to world domination? Who knows. Time will tell. Our fates are sealed.
But having played around with the form a bit myself, I can give you my early takeaways. MidJourney has proven an interesting experiment in the creative process. As you navigate the Discord server, you see the same things over and over again. Scientific images of Pokemon. Classical portraits of Bill Murray. When given "unlimited possibilities" to humanity, trends of sameness emerge.
After having spent a career in the creative industry, using MidJourney has many echoes of the creative process. The first things you try out are basic, first thoughts. A lot of people get stuck here, or don't find the motivation to move beyond that. But then something happens. After spitting out an image of a "dog," they notice that someone else has tried a "viking warrior dog" or some such variation. The results surprise and spur the mind further off the beaten path. This is the alchemy of brainstorming. The adding of one, single disruptive thought, that has the power to reshape the entire idea. This kind of thinking usually leads to the best and most memorable types of creative work. Breakthrough films. Watchable commercials.
With MidJourney, we are seeing millions of minds breeding and cross-pollinating in a petrie dish of creativity. With the speed at which images are pulled from text to final execution, you can feel the group evolving, iterating, remixing. And you can watch it all happen in real-time within the channels of the Discord.
Again, it's early. But this exercise in imagination is fascinating. The machine is acting as a kind of bicycle or race car that takes our ideas further. It misinterprets us. It ignores us. It spits out something highly graphic and definitive. It's this surprise that keeps us coming back. If the machine spit out EXACTLY what we were thinking, we would be over the act quickly. There is no magic there. The magic always lies in the chaos of the process. We as humans crave drama. We want the insanely shocking plot twists. We want these things because they make us feel corners of ourselves that we've never encountered before. Ironically, the machine behind MidJourney can help us access our humanity. Through our pop culture mashups and reimagining of Keanu Reaves as every character in history, we are opening ourselves up to surprise and delight.
No one knows how this story will end. But with MidJourney, this current chapter we find ourselves in will prove to be highly visual and enthralling. And I have a feeling that the big thing or behavior that we'll never expect is lurking just around the corner.
You can view my MidJourney brainstorms on my profile here.
