The world recently went into a frenzy over an AI-generated image of Pope Francis—clad in a stylish white puffer coat. Model and cookbook author, Chrissy Teigen, quickly took to Twitter to express her bewilderment. “I thought the pope’s puffer jacket was real and didn’t give it a second thought. No way am I surviving the future of technology,” she said on the micro-blogging platform.
Upon closer inspection, many noticed that the AI-generated image of Pope Francis lacked realistic details in his hands. Although this did not stop netizens from speculating whether this image was real or not. In fact, all the attention on the picture has brought netizens together over the power of AI technology.
The picture was actually generated by an AI tool called Midjourney and first appeared on Reddit. This advanced AI technology was started by two individuals, who, ironically, had zero experience in coding or building AI.
Benjamin Franz and Thomas Nicholas, founders of Midjourney, have put in a lot of hard work to create realistic AI-generated images of people, animals, and other objects. Midjourney uses a deep neural network to produce images that look uncannily real.
The viral image of Pope Francis has now caught the attention of the public. Furthermore, this serves as a reminder that AI technology is rapidly progressing and provides us with a glimpse into how technology will continue to shape our present and future.
