ARTBREEDER
Artbreeder is an AI-generated tool run on BigGAN and StyleGAN that allows users to create and modify images of landscapes, faces, paintings and more. It prides itself on its collaborative nature, as users mainly interact by “breeding” (or remixing) other users' images. To make new variations of an image, users can adjust the image’s sliders, known as its “genes,” which include options like clothing, face, armor and jacket. Publicly shared images can be “crossbred” with each other and adjusted using a slider to determine how much of one parent image the “child” image looks like. Under the collager section, users are able to make their own images by entering prompts that AI generates into pictures. Text-based AI-generated fantasy game, AI Dungeon, uses Artbreeder to create profile pictures for its users. According to Artbreeder’s terms of use, any images created and publicly shared on the site are released into the public domain and can be used “by anyone for any purpose, with or without attribution.”
DALL-E 2
DALL-E 2 is an AI-powered image generator created by OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT. The original DALL-E was released in 2021, and DALL-E 2, the updated version, was released in November 2022. Users enter text descriptions into the system, and the software spits out realistic, original images. The Microsoft-backed OpenAI has integrated DALL-E 2 into several platforms, including search engine Bing. It’s integrated into Bing Chat, Microsoft’s AI chatbot, and called the Bing Image Creator. OpenAI has limited DALL-E 2’s ability to create “violent, hate, or adult images,” by removing explicit content from training data. According to Open AI, users own the images generated by DALL-E 2, meaning they have a right to sell, reprint and merchandise the images.
LET’S ENHANCE
This AI text-to-image generator was founded by Ukrainian developers in 2017. Let’s Enhance allows users to enter prompts for images and gives several options to change their outcome, like image type, photo style, lens, mood, aesthetic, artist style and lighting. It also is a photo upscaler and enhancer, allowing users to upload their images for correction or enhancement. Some of its capabilities include adding clarity to the image, increasing resolution, adjusting saturation, resizing, light balancing and improving quality. The AI technology removes noise and other imperfections from images, making them look more polished. The company’s founders told PetaPixel the software .
There have been heated debates about whether AI-generated images can be protected by copyright because the software creates pictures by incorporating “elements from the vast libraries of digitally available images and artwork” that the AI was trained on, according to the Smithsonian.
Some popular AI image generators allow their images to be used for commercial purposes, though some have certain restrictions, like users have to make a purchase, or the newly-generated image can’t be created from any third-party content.
A recent question over the use of images generated by one AI software, Midjourney, resulted in the U.S. Copyright Office revoking the copyright covering the images in a graphic novel and issuing a new copyright covering only the text of the book, according to a report in Reuters.
People have also used AI image generators to create realistic images of people, like a user of Midjourney who created viral images of Trump’s fake arrest that spread on social media like wildfire, fooling people into believing the images were real.
