Sunday scribbles #26: Why are we all loving our godlike portraits from the app Lensa?

If you're engaging in the digital worlds of Instagram or Twitter, you have probably seen one of those surreal portraits made by the app Lensa. Or better: by the AI behind the app Lensa. For those of you who are now wondering what the hell I am talking about, here's a short summary from the website Beebom:

"Developed by Prisma Labs, Lensa AI is a powerful AI-based app that lets you generate surreal avatars using your selfies. The app calls its latest self-portrait generation feature “Magic Avatars,” and it uses the Stable Diffusion deep-learning model to create dreamy selfies in various art styles. Used in numerous AI art generators, Stable Diffusion is a text-to-image generative model and utilizes images, like your selfies, to develop its image model."

Okay, so you're up to date with how it works, but more importantly: why are we loving this app, and more so, the results? Well, mainly because they're fucking dope! Let's be honest: not all results are cool as hell, but out of 100 generated pictures there will be a dozen which you'll love for sure. I first saw a picture of my cousin pass my feed, after which it only took me about an hour to generate my own portraits. The biggest part was finding enough selfies on my phone, so if you're unlike me and you don't have to scroll back in your camera roll too much, you'll be set in half an hour. Whenever something like this is hyped, I am cautious in trying it out myself. Always remember that you are uploading your data somewhere, and that it can be used for various reasons. I have also read the book 'Scary Smart by Mo Gawdat', so when it comes to AI, I try to handle with care and be critical. After what we call a 'Last minute risk assessment', I decided to try it out. No worries, this all sounds as if I made a full analysis on pros and cons, but after all I just said 'it's okay if company X uses my data/pictures for whatever reasons'. But it is something I advise you to think about.

Now why are we loving these results? Well, for me it's simply because I have often dreamt of being in a virtual world or just being someone else than I am now. Don't get me wrong: I love who I am, but it's always fun to fantasize about wandering off to distant planets and going on adventures. It's this last thing that mainly motivated me to generate those portraits. No to drool on myself, since it's the apps task to make stunning pictures. No, I wanted to visualize myself as another character. Visualization is a strong thing. In many books about self-improvement it is said that if you can either visualize or dream it, you can do it. In fact, it goes so far as to say that visualizing oneself achieving a goal can greatly aid your efforts. So when you get to see yourself as an astronaut for example, or someone from a magical universe far away, you quickly start to fantasize about being that person. At least that's what I am doing. Anyway, I just wanted to share a quick insight into the popular app, because I am loving it as well. Here are a few AI-generated images that have completely blown me away.