DALL-E 2 is a text to image generator that was recently developed by Elon Musk’s company OpenAI. It uses artificial intelligence to generate new and original images from textual input. All you have to do is enter a short text prompt that describes exactly what you want to generate and what style you want the image to be in. For example, the text prompt “a robot doing a handstand at the beach, cartoon” yields the following results:
Source: https://openai.com/dall-e-2/
With this kind of revolutionary technology, everyone could soon be able to create high quality pictures and art in just a few seconds. Therefore, DALL-E 2 is not only a big step for artificial intelligence, but could also impact other fields like marketing and product design. We’ll show you how the DALL-E 2 generator works and what potential it holds!
How does DALL-E 2 work?
DALL-E 2 is based on existing OpenAI technologies, such as the natural language model GPT-3, which can understand and process natural language. It also utilizes the image-text model CLIP, which is programmed to find suitable text descriptions for images. In general, DALL-E 2 has a huge neural network (the brain of the AI) that can recognize deep structures in data through deep learning. Unlike traditional machine learning, where computers only learn to perform certain tasks, DALL-E 2 can use deep learning to perform more complex tasks.
So, if you want to generate an image with the DALL-E 2 technology, this is the underlying process:
Source: https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.06125
In the upper part of the image, you can see the training process of the CLIP model. DALL-E 2 uses CLIP to encode text-image pairs and create a so-called latent code.
In the lower part of the image, you can see the second step, where the text prompt is converted to a new image. In the second step, the latent code of the text-image pairs is taken and sent through a so-called prior. After that, a generator called a decoder is used to create new variations of the image that match the text prompt. By using different text inputs, the artificial intelligence can create a variety of different images.
How can DALL-E 2 be used?
We’ve tested the DALL-E 2 generator and have come to the conclusion that it has a lot of potential. The quality and variety of the generated images allows users to get creative with how they want to utilize the technology. Here are some possible examples:
- DALL-E 2 and online content: The DALL-E 2 technology allows you to create all kinds of images in different styles without any digital art or photo editing knowledge. You can then add the generated images to whatever specific content you provide in whatever style you prefer. It doesn’t matter whether you need a photorealistic image or something more akin to clip art, DALL-E 2 can deliver either way. For example, here are some scenic pictures of Miami Beach during a sunset that were generated by DALL-E 2:
Source: https://openai.com/dall-e-2/
And here are some images of a happy Shiba Inu in a sunny park in clip art:
Source: https://openai.com/dall-e-2/
- DALL-E 2 and marketing: DALL-E 2 could support companies in their marketing campaigns by enabling users to develop creative ideas and concepts for their services and products. With DALL-E 2, visual aspects for a campaign can be generated in seconds, eliminating the need to rely on stock photography, photographers, or digital artists. For example, if you need a picture of a skydiver holding a mobile phone for an advertising campaign, you can simply enter “A skydiver jumping out of a plane with a phone in his hand” as a text prompt:
Source: https://openai.com/dall-e-2/
- Product Innovation: DALL-E 2 can help conceive innovative product designs by generating images of the variations of products you potentially want to sell. This can help you to quickly and easily visualize different product designs without having to consult or hire a digital artist. Here is an example of the text prompt, “a white sneaker with colorful checker design”:
Source: https://openai.com/dall-e-2/
What are the limits of the DALL-E 2 technology?
Despite its many advantages, DALL-E 2, like any AI based technology, isn’t perfect and still encounters some notable limits:
- The images generated by DALL-E 2 are subject to social biases and do not always represent the diversity of society in aspects such as nationality, skin color, sexuality, gender, and religion.
- DALL-E 2 has difficulty representing details in complex scenes.
- DALL-E 2 currently fails to generate understandable and readable text in the images.
- DALL-E 2 sometimes struggles to assign the correct physical attributes to objects in an image.
- DALL-E 2 is based on a limited database that intentionally excludes certain types of content such as firearms, sexuality, etc., so you can’t generate images that fall within those categories.
- DALL-E 2 has problems generating human faces. This is especially the case when you create an image that has multiple people in it. The faces look distorted and not human.
What will the future for DALL-E 2 look like?
The bottom line is that DALL-E 2 is a fascinating and versatile technology that will certainly be further developed in the future to create even better images. Even though DALL-E 2 is currently a closed beta and only available to a number of approved users, there are already attempts to make the technology open source. For example, DALL-E Mini is a more simplistic version of the DALL-E 2 generator and completely free to use.
Additionally, it will be interesting to see how DALL-E 2 might work in combination with other AI technologies. Text generators, for example, are already widely available to the public and capable of creating entire SEO blog posts with AI. If DALL-E 2 was to be combined with such text generators, AI could soon be able to generate long texts with original images completely from scratch. All in all, we can be curious about what the future holds for DALL-E 2 and other AI systems.