She is out there, hidden in a parallel universe of potentials. She can be created by simply entering the appropriate prompt into an AI image generator.
The words will bring to light the strange visage of a middle-aged woman with lifeless eyes, a vacant expression, and an unsettling grimace, like a digital incantation.
She goes by the moniker Loab (pronounced like “lobe”) and was “found” by a Swedish artist who uses the Twitter handle @Supercomposite.
Among the first generation of contemporary artists to investigate the potential of text-to-image AI generators is Supercomposite. The artist came across a frightening visage this year while working with negative cues, which instruct machine learning algorithms to locate the exact opposite of something.
The same woman appeared once more, this time next to the word “loab,” when Supercomposite ran the prompt.
“She was easier for the AI to replicate than most famous people. She haunts every image she touches and is tenacious in her presence “About Loab’s discovery, Supercomposite posted on Twitter in a thread from September 2022.
“Seat yourself. This actual horror tale takes a severely gruesome turn.”
With such a hook, it’s understandable that Loab went on to dominate the internet. This enigmatic woman’s image is now so well-known that she even has a Wikipedia article.
What Loab stands for is a big part of her enigma. The figure of Loab has evolved into a sort of contemporary “tronie”—a Dutch Golden Age art form that exaggerates the expression of a face to symbolise a concept rather than a person.
Compared to, say, the subject of the more well-known tronie titled Girl With A Pearl Earring, the allegory of Loab is slightly more horrifying. Additional importantly, it wasn’t created by a human artist who could have provided more information about the concept they were attempting to convey.
Many of the hundreds of Loab iterations that Supercomposite has conjured up often have screaming or dismembered children in the background. The artist decided not to release some AI-generated images because they were so horrifying.
“I was disassembling Loab and reassembling her. We don’t know how to find her with text inquiries because she is an emerging island in the latent area “The artist tweets about his work.
“Sooner or later, she comes across everyone. All you need to do is know where to find “Adding supercomposite.
More than only her nightmare characteristics, Loab has drawn attention from all around the world. The creepy woman, who was rescued from the depths by what Supercomposite refers to as a “emergent statistical accident,” stands in for a new era of innovation that we may or may not be ready for.
Brendan Murphy, an Australian photographer and instructor in digital media, spends a lot of his leisure time considering the potential of AI and testing out word and image generators.
He believes that the art world is about to undergo a paradigm change similar to the one that occurred when photography first appeared in the early 1800s as a result of the recent explosion in technology.
In the present, Murphy compares using AI to create art to exploring a location in search of fascinating things to shoot. However, in this instance, the environment he is investigating is akin to a parallel universe of human creativity.
Since AI generators are taught on human knowledge, culture, and artistic traditions, everything they produce is conceivably something we could have done.
Murphy and Supercomposite are among the first to start looking for these untapped potentials, which are now accessible to everyone.
According to Murphy, who spoke with ScienceAlert, “there are things that you see that intrigue you, that you really want to accentuate, and that you really want to move in that path.”
“These paths should not be taken. And there are very likely very good reasons why no one has followed these roads. Because it’s unlikely to ever wow somebody or make a sale.”
This is not to say that employing AI to create art is pointless. Murphy asserts that AI is instead a tool that artists can employ to advance their artistic endeavours. And occasionally, a priceless figure like Loab appears from the depths.
“The great thing about Loab, in my opinion, is its tale. It goes beyond technology alone. It examines the forces behind technology. It considers the technological potential, “He clarifies.
“I believe that is fantastic. I consider that to be legitimate art. Much more important than simply creating a specific AI image. There has been a lot of contemplation, testing, and revision.”
Similar thoughts are held by Anne Ploin, a digital sociologist at the Oxford Internet Institute who studies the potential effects of machine learning on creative work.
According to Ploin, “AI models might extrapolate in surprising ways [and] call attention to an entirely overlooked component in a particular style of painting.”
“However, machine learning models are not self-contained. They won’t invent fresh aesthetic trends on their own.”
According to Murphy and other art experts, it’s unlikely that AI will completely replace human creativity. After all, art only survives if others respect it, and as a species, we frequently have rather strong preconceived notions about our own skills.
Murphy claims that moving forward, AI-generated artworks can encourage us to examine our emotional responses to visuals and question creative traditions.
But as we go into a new era, it’s possible that many writing and artistic services may become obsolete, eliminating the need for numerous ghostwriters, illustrators, designers, and photographers.
The recent surge in AI-generated art has raised worries that algorithms are stealing from artists by copying their own styles.
The best human artists will undoubtedly continue to compete with AI, and Murphy believes the most successful artists in the future will be those that embrace their humanity.
For artists, having a real, recognisable public face and identity may be more important than ever. Murphy recently stated in The Conversation that “the artist’s personality remains a vital background for their work, regardless matter how apps like Lensa shake up the way art is generated.”
An AI-based text generator called ChatGPT was made available to the public in November 2022. Its name, Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer, refers to an engine that works like a more advanced version of your phone’s predictive text capability by determining the likelihood that specific words will appear in a block of text.
The responses from the programme seem to have a ghostly presence, similar to Loab, pushing the envelopes of human knowledge and imagination. Even so, it doesn’t take much for the veneer to come off, revealing its true nature as a “parrot” that plays the odds by rolling the appropriate word combinations to deceive humans.
Any guidance it offers is still up to us to dissect and evaluate. ChatGPT concurs with Murphy when asked how AI is influencing art:
“The way that art is created, viewed, and experienced is changing as a result of artificial intelligence. The creation of new types of art, like music, poetry, and visual art, is possible with the help of AI algorithms. Additionally, previous artwork can be examined and interpreted using these techniques in fresh and intriguing ways. Additionally, interactive art installations and performances that can interact with viewers in real-time are being developed using AI technology. In general, AI is enabling artists to create and experiment with new forms of expression, and audiences to engage with art in novel and interesting ways.”
The limits of artistic expression are being pushed, and Loab is only the beginning.
