Throughout December, a social media consumer referred to as Stelfie the Time Traveller has been crafting a time-hopping travelogue utilizing generative AI. Thanks to Stable Diffusion and fine-tuning, an nameless artist has created a fictional photorealistic character that he can insert into fake historic pictures set in several eras, resembling historic Egypt or the time of the dinosaurs.
Stable Diffusion is a deep studying picture synthesis mannequin that enables individuals to create fictional scenes utilizing textual content descriptions known as prompts. With a further method known as Dreambooth, individuals can insert their very own topic or character into scenes generated by Stable Diffusion. It can be used to insert actual individuals into fictional conditions.
So far, “Stelfie” has taken historic selfies throughout the ice age (being chased by a woolly mammoth), in historic Egypt (throughout the development of the pyramids), in historic Greece (with the Trojan Horse), hanging out with Leonardo da Vinci (whereas creating the Mona Lisa), within the previous West, whereas working from a tyrannosaurus rex, and whereas crusing with Christopher Columbus.
The artist behind Stelfie writes social media posts (on Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit) in character as playful dispatches from a 41-year-old time traveler as he visits totally different areas, for instance:
Log #3 – Columbus ship, 1492 DC. “Laaaaand” Now, I do not wanna brag however… After months of crusing Columbus was misplaced within the Oceans and properly as an example I’ll have kinda advised the proper route…
The nameless artist (a self-identified “humorous previous man”) detailed a few of the course of he makes use of to create the pictures in a number of Reddit feedback: a mix of Stable Diffusion 1.5, a customized AI mannequin for the panorama, and a customized AI mannequin skilled on the Stelfie face, which is outwardly a fictional individual created utilizing Character Creator. He makes use of “a whole lot of inpainting,” which suggests inserting AI-generated imagery into the pictures to repair errors and sculpt the scene, and every picture takes three hours to create.
Some might discover Stelfie’s makes an attempt to promote the pictures as NFTs unpalatable (the tech is controversial), however simulated time journey is arguably a novel leisure use of know-how that may in any other case create deepfakes and doubtlessly deceive others. Using Dreambooth and Stable Diffusion, anybody can now insert a personality (or themselves) into unbelievable and fictional conditions, so we’ll probably see much more fictional leisure situations within the close to future.
Listing picture by StelfieTT