Artificial intelligence has taken a punt at creating some stereotypical New Zealanders and the results are kinda fucking with me.
Redditor u/KiwiVandi asked Midjourney, an AI image generator, to show him “The Most Stereotypical Person” from different Aotearoa cities and towns. Despite the gender-neutral prompt, the AI only displayed male creations, so he ran it back and asked for the female versions as well.
I gotta say, be warned, this might put you into an existential crisis because I’ve definitely seen at least half these people before. Especially the Wellington and Dunedin guys but definitely not the Queenstown guy (what the hell happened with that one?). Just click on the arrows to scroll through the different towns.
Turns out the AI reckons stereotypical women are a lot less homeless looking than men. The prompt of “most typical young and older women” from different places in New Zealand actually looked like everyday people rather than more eccentric characters from around their respective towns.
Commenters on both posts have the same mindset as me after viewing those: in awe but also scared.
“This stuff absolutely blows my mind,” wrote one person. “It’s obviously not perfect but these people look so much like actual people. It’s uncanny.”
“It does use the input of real photos but it’s still amazing that these images and everything in them is generated and remixed, every little detail,” said another.
“Never mind the people,” a third added. “I’m in awe of how the backgrounds look exactly like real places in New Zealand.”
If that’s creeping you out a bit, or you’re fascinated by AI, keep on riding the train baby. Last month someone made a whole Oasis album since they were tired of waiting on the Gallagher brothers.
The indie band Breezer were fed up so took matters into their own hands to create an eight-track album that sounds like it could’ve been released back in Oasis’ heyday.
They’ve called the album ‘The Lost Tapes Volume I,’ under the band name ‘AIsis.’
It honestly sounds pretty legit, and Liam Gallagher himself liked it, saying: “Mad as fuck, I sound mega.”
Not a bad attitude to have towards AI I guess, but also if it comes up with a photo that looks like me, I'm running for the hills.
