Software7.01.2023

Artificial intelligence imagines 41 countries as supervillains — including South Africa

A generative AI content creator on TikTok, Lucas Freitas, recently posted 41 images where he asked Midjourney to turn different countries into supervillains.

Midjourney is an independent research lab that released an artificial intelligence (AI) image generation tool of the same name last year.

Midjourney was founded by David Holz, who previously cofounded Leap Motion — a company that built hardware to use finger and hand motions for computer input.

Before that, he was a graduate student researcher at NASA Langley Research Center for two years, working on LiDAR, Mars missions, and atmospheric science.

“We are a small self-funded team focused on design, human infrastructure, and AI. We have 11 full-time staff and an incredible set of advisors,” the Midjourney website states.

“[We are] exploring new mediums of thought and expanding the imaginative powers of the human species.”

In an interview with The Register, Holz said that Midjourney was a self-funded startup that was already profitable.

It offers a limited amount of free usage per month, after which you must subscribe. Plans are available for $10, $30, and $60 per month (discounted when billed annually).

Users interact with Midjourney by issuing commands through a Discord application (known as a “bot”).

The command takes the form, /imagine prompt {PROMPT TEXT}, with users able to set various flags and other settings to get a specific image from Midjourney.

It should be noted that the company has rules against generating certain types of pictures, as it hopes to foster a community safe for everyone 13 years and older.

“Don’t use our tools to make images that could inflame, upset, or cause drama. That includes gore and adult content,” its website states.

MyBroadband conducted reverse image searches on Freitas’ South Africa-inspired image to ensure he didn’t simply lift it from an artist.

We also tried to recreate Freitas’ images in Midjourney, indicating it was possible to create such images with the bot.

However, our tests suggest some “prompt engineering” and trial-and-error were likely needed to obtain many of the characters featured in the images, including South Africa.

When running /imagine prompt South Africa as a supervillain, for example, Midjourney seemed more likely to return portraits of contemporary-looking characters rather than mythological ones.

Considering that many of the national supervillains seem inspired by folklore, the prompt was likely nudged in that direction.

The 41 countries Freitas has published so far are embedded below.

Note that his content is currently only available via the TikTok mobile app due to limitations with the platform’s photo posts.

We generated this article’s title image in Midjourney with the prompt “Supervillains representing several countries walking towards camera with an explosion in the background”.