I never realized until a couple of days ago, how good AI image generation can be. Here are a few I asked it to create: A Br Class 47: Another one, but with a fictional livery. A mix between German and Dutch: Now a Class 66 with the same livery: Now the same Class 66, with almost the same livery, different station: Now a Dutch Koploper: Now the Network Rail New Measurement Train — the bright-yellow HST “Flying Banana.” Now a close up of a BR Class 350: (This one doesn't look quite right) All these are done with the "image generator pro" in the ChatGPT app on Windows. (Free version)
Yes, it got that slightly wrong, also there's the "Avandi" And then there's this version of the Koploper
What is the nameplate on the first 47 even supposed to say? And why does it have holes in it where a piece is missing? The platform by the 66 looks like it almost goes under the train at the rear, and is at ground level. Avandi as people have mentioned. It's a little hard to tell, but the coaches behind the 43 look like they don't have any doors. The front of the Pendolino looks off, and isn't the 350 supposed to have a gangway? On the last image with the Kopopler, again, the platform appears to be ground level.
As much as I hate generative AI and anything that has to do with it, even I can't deny that AI has improved with the close-up shots. The wide-angle pictures and the backgrounds are still quite bad, and AI still has trouble with perspective, but it has... improved... a little. And I fear it will only get better as time goes on...
You could argue that AI could take the load off the development team in some areas and use that in areas where a real person can do better. As for the pushback against AI, it's a tool, there are similar levels of pushback from people whenever a new technology appears, most famously the luddites and the pushback against machinery by the arts and crafts movement. Time moves on, you either go with it, or swim against the tide.
I’m guessing they all look like a filthy dystopian future because 10 years after AI has wiped out all humans this is the amount of nature that will have grown on the machines we left lying around. Are the prompts all asking for the trains to look like they were left abandoned in Pripyat and photographed a decade or two later or is this just how this particular tool sees the world now? At least the flying banana is clean.
No fear Stu. I bashed the Image Generator over the head, explained the livery in more detail, asked for a two car unit with the pantograph over the lead cab and for it to be positioned at Clacton depot in Winter. I think now we, more or less, have an exact copy of the real thing