The internet was already a strange place, but it’s suddenly become even stranger thanks to the explosion of weird AI art created by image generators such as DALL·E 2. From strange cartoon cross-breeds to surreal food and apocalyptic selfiest, DALL·E 2 really does seem to be able to create any weird AI art you can describe in the prompt box that is uses to generate images. After all, it is named after Salvador Dali.

Of course DALL·E 2 and other AI art generators don’t think of these things themselves. They run the written prompt they’re given through the millions of images and captions they’ve been fed. So the results are only as weird as users’ imaginations. There are plenty of existential concerns about where this is all going and what it means for artists, but DALL·E 2 won’t be taking over the world and turning us into slaves yet. We hope. 

OpenAI, the makers of DALL·E 2 have recently announced pricing and that they’ll be expanding access to the platform over the next month, but for now there’s still a waiting list. Want to learn how to make it work for you? See our guide to how to use DALL·E 2. In the meantime, here’s some of the weirdest AI art created by DALL·E 2 so far.

The last selfie ever taken

@thesomethingtrippy (opens in new tab)
♬ The righteous wrath of an honorable man – Colin Stetson (opens in new tab)

One of the latest trends doing the rounds on TikTok is to use DALL·E 2 to create “the last selfie ever taken”. Started by the Tiktokker @robotoverloards and taken up by others, the results appear to be suitably apocalyptic showing androids and skeletons posing for pictures amid desolate scenes of a burning planet.  The trend’s even started a conspiracy theory – just what is the blue cube that DALL·E 2 has placed in several of the images?

Ronald McDonald in Star Trek

On a lighter note, a lot of the weirdest AI art created on DALL·E 2 has involved putting famous people and characters in unlikely places. And it seems the only limit is your imagination.

SpongeBob SquarePants Godzilla

Of all the DALL·E 2 cartoon mashups around (and there are a lot), this has to be our favourite. It’s improved by the giving specific instructions for the artist, not just the combination of two characters. 

Peanut butter sandwich Rubik’s cube

Data scientist Max Woolf (opens in new tab) has been testing how reliably DALL·E 2 can follow instructions when asked to produce food photography and to see if it might be able to produce new ideas for food content on the internet. For example to make a peanut butter sandwich into the shape of a Rubik’s cube? Yes, it could.

Animals live their dreams

There’s a whole category of AI images dedicated to anthropomorphism, showing either playing sports, presenting the news, and much more. 

The Apple car

AI art generators have opened up new possibilities for fan renders of products that are rumoured to be in production but whose makers don’t want to show us yet. We’ve been wanting to get a peak at the rumoured Apple Car ever since we got wind of the project. The designer and YouTuber John Mauriello (opens in new tab) figured that DALL·E 2 might be able to imagine what it will look like. Of course typing ‘Apple Car’ resulted in a car that looked like a fruit, so instead, he went for  “Minimalist Sportscar inspired by a MacBook and a Magic Mouse, built out of aluminum and glass”.

“Duolingo trail cam”

We finally get to see what everyone’s favourite polyglot owl gets up to while were asleep thanks to the Duolingo trail cam. This was actually created in Craiyon, formerly named DALL-E mini, until the makers of DALL-E had words.

Greener cities

It’s not all apocalypse and anthropomorphism in AI art. Some people are actually putting it to productive use. Yes, really, and good for them. The artist Zach Katz is using DALL·E 2 to show how city streets could look without cars and with added greenery and water features. It’s a whole lot more sensible and suggests AI could have a use in town planning. His Twitter account @betterstreetsai (opens in new tab) has gained thousands of followers in just weeks, and he’s got a backlog of requests for locations to try.

‘Pug-a-choo’ 

Enough of such sensible, worthwhile pursuits. Why use AI to create something useful when you could create a cross between a Pokémon and a dog? 

R2D2 getting baptised

There seem to be a lot of Star Wars fans using DALL·E 2 and some of the weirdest AI art pieces have involved characters being placed in unlikely situations, from Jar Jar Binks on Love Island to a Darth Vader MRI scan, and yes R2DR after finding God. This is another one created in Craiyon.

Nike Air Sushi being stalked by a bear

We’ve seen character mashups, artist mashups, what about clothing? In fact, given some of the footwear collabs we’ve seen in recent years, we wouldn’t be surprised if these see the light of day. And just look how much the bear wants them.

The Muppets gatecrash London Fashion Week

And speaking of fashion, we’re loving these catwalk look modelled by some of Jim Henson’s finest. The weirdest AI art fashion collection we’ve seen yet.

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