Does anyone have a good technical-context breakdown for how Midjourney does what it does?
Not my focus, but would love to read through something that connects "This is how it breaks down input/example images, identifies relevant high-level themes and characteristics, then rebuilds those into novel output images."
Specifically around image generation, although I assume there's some text metadata in the background.
F.ex. "What makes bomb shelter images look like bomb shelters?" is a question I could answer, but apparently one Midjourney et al. can do a pretty good job answering too.
Core77 ought to really benefit from Midjourney being a thing. One of the publication's major points of focus is conceptualization.
However, this is so especially true that I can see the situation inverting itself such that a new, higher bar is set for concept work.
Like, OK, interesting examples of a lifestyle take on a traditionally bleak structure. But also, what's really unique from an industrial design POV? Are there functional details that hint at a new experience aside from visual aspects? Or, what are some additional takes that move the discussion out of the more common form vs. function dichotomy?
(And as the comment on the post ever so gently hints, I think there's still going to be some tension around the introduction of this new tooling... especially if it is effectively adding noise to the space in the form of new visuals without as much consideration. How much of this is now an editorial problem vs. a problem for the industry?)
The prompt may not be explicit enough about it looking like IKEA.
This looks like something from the 70s. Which makes sense, since Midjourney likely assumes a connection between bomb/fallout shelters and the Cold War.
Looks like mode collapse in Midjourney. It is less capable of dealing with instructions now likely to increase the chance of generating aesthetically pleasing output.
The furniture itself is 60's-70's American decor, the colours are Wes Anderson and the camera angle and room layouts are IKEA catalogue. Pretty interesting output and I actually dig the vibe even if it's not really that close to any real life IKEA furniture design.
One of my favorite things about generative art is digging into what it got right and what it got wrong.
So far, the public ones are often like a first-year student's impression of X -- it nails some aspects (symmetry, color palette, or framing), but others completely elude it (object-object relativity like "zippers go on clothes, not skin" or intentionality behind object choice).
What's fascinating now is which things are picked up on (e.g. 70s) and which are ignored (e.g. specific IKEA furniture design style).
And then how that's reinterpreted by viewers -- "Looks great!" vs "Misses A & B!"
Which to me makes the whole system an autoecoder for ignorant people (in the not-knowing, not pejorative sense).
If Midjourney can create an image that will be attractive to people who don't know furniture design, and 90% of people don't know furniture design, it works for meme purposes.
How big of a market is the prepper community? Wonder if this would actually be a viable business, although not sure if prepper and ikea aesthetics overlap much.
The market is small, but growing in leaps and bounds, no small thanks to aesthetically appealing portrayals of bunker life in popular media. And also, the fact that leaders of nations are issuing renewed threats to use nuclear weapons on other nations, maybe.
“One day I saw a newspaper headline reporting that the President suggested that if Americans had to buy their bomb shelters, rather than being provided with them by the government, they'd take better care of them, an idea which made me furious. Logically, each of us should own a submarine, a jet fighter, and so forth.”
— Philip K. Dick, describing the inspiration for his 1955 short story Foster, You're Dead!¹
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[ 0.14 ms ] story [ 44.4 ms ] threadNot my focus, but would love to read through something that connects "This is how it breaks down input/example images, identifies relevant high-level themes and characteristics, then rebuilds those into novel output images."
Specifically around image generation, although I assume there's some text metadata in the background.
F.ex. "What makes bomb shelter images look like bomb shelters?" is a question I could answer, but apparently one Midjourney et al. can do a pretty good job answering too.
However, this is so especially true that I can see the situation inverting itself such that a new, higher bar is set for concept work.
Like, OK, interesting examples of a lifestyle take on a traditionally bleak structure. But also, what's really unique from an industrial design POV? Are there functional details that hint at a new experience aside from visual aspects? Or, what are some additional takes that move the discussion out of the more common form vs. function dichotomy?
(And as the comment on the post ever so gently hints, I think there's still going to be some tension around the introduction of this new tooling... especially if it is effectively adding noise to the space in the form of new visuals without as much consideration. How much of this is now an editorial problem vs. a problem for the industry?)
The prompt may not be explicit enough about it looking like IKEA.
This looks like something from the 70s. Which makes sense, since Midjourney likely assumes a connection between bomb/fallout shelters and the Cold War.
So far, the public ones are often like a first-year student's impression of X -- it nails some aspects (symmetry, color palette, or framing), but others completely elude it (object-object relativity like "zippers go on clothes, not skin" or intentionality behind object choice).
What's fascinating now is which things are picked up on (e.g. 70s) and which are ignored (e.g. specific IKEA furniture design style).
And then how that's reinterpreted by viewers -- "Looks great!" vs "Misses A & B!"
Which to me makes the whole system an autoecoder for ignorant people (in the not-knowing, not pejorative sense).
If Midjourney can create an image that will be attractive to people who don't know furniture design, and 90% of people don't know furniture design, it works for meme purposes.
— Philip K. Dick, describing the inspiration for his 1955 short story Foster, You're Dead!¹
1. <https://web.archive.org/web/20150419181303/http://american-b...>