Looking for the I in AI.

I know some people in the visual arts are worried that artificial intelligence may replace them. I can sympathize. I've been traded in for a box of tissues and a can of Turtle Wax, so I know the feeling. But enough about my dating history.

AI art does things automatically that people are not born doing. For example, gradient backgrounds and shading. These things have to be learned. A computer art program can do it for you, but you have to learn how to use the program. With AI, you plug in the subject and out pops the art, with 3D shading and all. 

But how intelligent is it?

Being cheap, I wanted to try a couple of drawings with some free software, so I used Gab's AI program, Gabby. I asked it to illustrate the old setup line: Why did the chicken cross the road? I got two choices:

Here the chicken -- if that's what it is; some chickens have five toes, but she must have lost one on the right foot -- is shown at the Alamo. Colonel William Travis has personally challenged the chicken to cross the line in the sand if she is willing to stay and fight. We don't know what the chicken chose to do, but legend says all but one at the Alamo crossed the line to join Travis. It would make sense that the one that didn't was, in fact, chicken.

In this more cartoony version, the chick seems to have decided not to conform with the parameters of the joke. Rather than cross the road, he looks at the viewer from the middle of the road, challenging him to swallow the punchline. The highway line painter also seems to have decided not to conform to anything, running right off the road toward the single, mysterious farm building in the distance. Lovely sunrise, but no one's doing anything right on the ground.

For my next experiment, I asked Gabby for a picture of President Biden riding a hippopotamus while wearing a crash helmet. I heard his wife was in Africa now, so maybe if she got in trouble he could go ride after her and save the day on a local water mammal. 

Okay, well, this isn't too bad. He does not have the crash helmet, but he is protected against drowning with the vest, and that's more important since they're galloping through the water. He is also being safe against viral diseases with the mask, and prepared to sign something if necessary. Fairly dramatic. The hippo's flank is looking blank, though.

I like this one better, for its splashing -- that's another thing that's hard to draw -- but I have no idea what planet this hippo came from. And what in blue blazes has the president got in his hand? Someone had better take that away from him before he gets hurt. He's well dressed, though, pocket square and all. Still no crash helmet.

So that's the state of AI art today, or at least a free version. Maybe the ones that you have to pay for are better. They all inhabit the uncanny valley, but that's going to change in the future. I don't know what future we're going toward, but everyone seems to be in a tremendous hurry to get there.