Reflections on AI Images & History
It is more of a mirror that is held to our belief of the narratives.
What I've noticed is that many dismiss images AI creates based on historical settings. "That's just AI's version of it" is the usual refrain. But isn't everything we are taught about history itself just a version that has been agreed upon?
AI is no different as it takes what information it has been provided to create what it thinks we want to see.
Here are some time periods imagined by AI:
1900s America
Here it shows images of an expanding nation and her people. The robust American spirit of growth and ingenuity.
1920s America
A busy city street, roaring 20s flappers and optimism are on display with this image. A nation who knows itself and the direction it (thinks) wants to go.
1930s America
A montage of Great Depression shots. They still capture the hope that folks had that things were going to get better.
1940s America
Excellent time capsule. A girl in a diner looking forlorn as she waits for her GI to come home from the war, a couple stealing on more stroll before he heads back to the front.
1950s America
The post-WW2 optimism of the country seems to shine through with these images. Elegant women, class and style of the period is seen clearly.
1960s America
The cultural upheaval and societal change reveals itself in the lower right image. AI captures the beginnings of national unrest.
1970s America
Classic 70s Americana throughout.
1980s America
The consumerism of the 80s jumps out at me with these. Funny how Mcdonald's is so prominent for the 80's and what AI conjured up. I almost imagine a clueless 1950s woman looking over the cyberpunk sprawl in the 3rd picture.
1990s America
The blight and miasma of America begins to show through these images. The blank stare, entropy of structures and a sense of loss.
2000s America
A question of who, exactly, is America reveals itself in the 2000s. While prior timeframes include Americans, this is just cluttered landscapes and visual word salad. The empty diner reflects the fracturing of ties amongst society.
2020 America
Merely a jumble of slogans and ideas are the current iteration that AI sees when it creates images of a current American age. While other timelines exhibited a nation made of her people, this one shows the fracturing of it. Any of these could be standard graphics from a pulp New York Times article on the blessings of our “Sacred Democracy™️,” or another Atlantic diatribe extolling the virtues of the latest screed written in book form on how horrible America was (or currently is) according to whatever Leftist writer thinks.
AI image generation is able to tell us more about ourselves and the current condition of the civilizational psyche than we care to admit.
This was pretty scary
That was actually quite interesting. I always love it when people use things creatively to create something else, in this case AI, to tell a story. There isn't a necessity for a discussion about the lifelessness or soullessness of AI, then. Listen to the raw output of a synthesizer, as an (imperfect) analogy, but when put in the right hands, it's a beautiful instrument.