This week, X launched an AI-image generator, allowing paying subscribers of Elon Musk's social platform to make their own art. So--naturally--some users appear to have immediately made images of Donald Trump flying a plane toward the World Trade Center; Mickey Mouse wielding an assault rifle, and another of him enjoying a cigarette and some beer on the beach; and so on. Some of the images that people have created using the tool are deeply unsettling; others are just strange, or even kind of funny. They depict wildly different scenarios and characters. But somehow they all kind of look alike, bearing unmistakable hallmarks of AI art that have cropped up in recent years thanks to products such as Midjourney and DALL-E.

Google's AI services are receiving boosts across the board, with AI image generation arriving in Google Bard, powered by a new Imagen 2 technology that Google promises is more lifelike (and weirdness-free) than ever. And just days after the internet voted its Gemini Pro chatbot technology as nearly the world's best, it's arriving pretty much everywhere Bard is offered. Google is also releasing a dedicated AI art tool, known as ImageFX, to go along with its existing MusicFX and TextFX tools, inside its AI Test Kitchen beta program. Overall, it's a multifaceted improvement for Bard, both from a quality standpoint and the number of services Google is integrating AI into. Although Google launched its Gemini Pro upgrade last December, the chatbot was available to just a subset of users.

The year 2023 was a roller-coaster ride for Microsoft, as the tech giant faced both triumphs and tribulations in its quest to dominate the industry. From launching new products and services, to dealing with lawsuits and scandals, to making some surprising moves and announcements, Microsoft had its share of wins, fails, and WTF moments. I asked Microsoft Copilot to write that, saving me a precious minute or two. And then it happily gave me an example: the launch of Windows 11…which, of course, actually happened in October of 2021. So, yeah, that was Microsoft's 2023 in a nutshell: All the promise of AI, tempered with the reality that it still needs a lot of work.

Some people may care that the "Apps" section now separates some Windows apps, now labeled as "System components," into a separate page. Settings now leans a bit too much toward subscriptions -- most people probably don't need a constant reminder of their OneDrive quota and Game Pass subscription, but it's understandable. Microsoft has also provided an updated audio mixer for Windows 11, which is a step forward. You'll need the click the volume controls in the Taskbar, than navigate through to the small "wires" icon to the right of the volume bar to make any adjustments.

In the world of generated imagery, you’re either drop-dead gorgeous or a wrinkled, bug-eyed freak.

AI image generators Midjourney and Stable Diffusion trained their models with the works of countless artists without their permission or compensation, artist says. Pieces of artwork can be created in the blink of an eye with AI technology. Whether it's writing an essay, creating a video or a drawing, if you can think it, AI can probably create it. Text to image generators are an evolving form of AI that are able to create images based off of a few words inputted by users. Depending on the software being used, images can get extremely detailed and complex.

You've probably heard a lot about both Bing Chat and ChatGPT in recent weeks. Generative AI is here to stay and even if it's not something you can see yourself using in the long term, it's certainly worth trying these tools out and educating yourself a little more on them. Bing Chat is in some ways quite like ChatGPT. Microsoft is a big investor in OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, and uses the latest GPT-4 model in the backend of Bing Chat. So, there are definite similarities in the way the two operate.

Bing Image Creator is an innovative tool that allows users to generate stunning images with ease. This tool has a vast database of images and allows users to create images in different styles, including cartoons, 3D images, and optical illusions. As a user of this tool, I must say that I am impressed with the results that I have seen. I first used Bing Image Creator to generate some cartoon characters, and I was delighted with some of the ones it created. The tool allowed me to choose different features for the cartoon characters, such as the size of the eyes, the shape of the nose, and the style of the hair.

Microsoft is taking its integration of AI tools one step further with the rollout of Bing Image Creator. The new AI-powered image creation tool can create images from a text prompt and harnesses OpenAI's impressive DALL-E model to bring your words to life (well, still life). Better still, Microsoft Bing Image Creator is free to use, meaning you can create completely new, AI-generated images from scratch with almost zero limitations. The Official Microsoft Blog revealed the launch of Bing Image Creator on 21 March 2023, and it is the next step in Microsoft's plans for generative AI content following the launch of its Bing AI Chat. Bing AI Chat uses OpenAI's GPT-4 model to power its responses. But Bing Image Creator uses another of OpenAI's powerful array of artificial intelligence models, DALL-E, to turn text prompts into images.

Following on from the integration of ChatGPT into the Bing search engine, Microsoft have now followed up by integrating another of OpenAI's products: the AI image generator DALL-E 2. It's fair to say that rolling out the "new Bing" with its ChatGPT-powered AI chat functionality was a whopping success for Microsoft. Now, says Microsoft Corporate VP Yusuf Mehdi in a blog post (opens in new tab), the tech giant are "taking the chat experience to the next level by making the new Bing more visual." What that boils down to is utilizing the OpenAI's AI image generator, DALL-E 2, to form the Bing Image Creator. Essentially, instead of using DALL-E 2 to generate images on its own website, you can type prompts into the Bing search engine to receive AI generated imagery from there using the same engine. So how do you use the Bing Image Creator?