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This is a post from [5]Robin Sloan’s lab blog & notebook. You can [6]visit the
blog’s homepage, or [7]learn more about me.

[8]Art-directing AI

March 27, 2025

I want to draw your eye to the images in [9]this recent post from Amelia
Wattenberger, which seem to me an example of someone trying hard to art-direct
AI image generation in a recognizably editorial way.

Clearly, Amelia was going for a particular look. There is a clear idea at work
here, exactly the kind you’d specify to an artist (or pitch to an art
director). However, the fundamental fuzziness of the AI approach is apparent;
while the images do all have the same “texture”, they don’t seem to have come
from the same source, or indeed to have been made by the same “person”.

Anyone who has worked with AI tools will recognize the feeling of “close
enough”-ness. If you squint, you can see all the images Amelia rejected — a
pile of crumpled-up drawings just beyond the frame of the browser. The images
published with the post were, for sure, the best options, even if together they
don’t quite form a coherent package.

Anyway, it’s interesting and useful to encounter this strategy for illustration
“fully expressed”, rather than just imagined. I don’t think it succeeds, but/
and I’m glad to have the example to consider.

[10]To the blog home page

I'm [11]Robin Sloan, a fiction writer. The main thing to do here is sign up for
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Don’t miss [14]the colophon. Hony soyt qui mal pence


References:

[1] https://www.robinsloan.com/lab/
[2] https://www.robinsloan.com/about/
[3] https://www.robinsloan.com/moonbound/
[4] https://www.robinsloan.com/shop/
[5] https://www.robinsloan.com/
[6] https://www.robinsloan.com/lab/
[7] https://www.robinsloan.com/about/
[8] https://www.robinsloan.com/lab/art-directing-ai/
[9] https://wattenberger.com/thoughts/our-interfaces-have-lost-their-senses?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me
[10] https://www.robinsloan.com/lab/
[11] https://www.robinsloan.com/about?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me
[14] https://www.robinsloan.com/colophon/