Who Is the Woman Haunting A.I.-Generated Art?

Earlier this month, Twitter user Supercomposite posted a thread of spooky images featuring a woman she calls "Loab," who usually has red cheeks and dark, hollow eyes. Since then, the images, which range from unsettling to grotesque, have gone viral. The images of Loab all come from an artificial intelligence (A.I.) art tool. These tools, like DALL-E 2, create images based on text prompts users input into the platform--and they are having a cultural moment as of late. Just last month, a piece of A.I.-created art won the Colorado State Fair art competition.