I attempted the 100x ChatGPT picture pattern, and I hate it

Is that this actually what ChatGPT thinks of me?

An offended, beardless man with nothing in his life however a roommate and a pretend pumpkin on a shelf?

The unique…
Credit score: Timothy Beck Werth / Mashable

…and the ultimate end result. (AI-generated picture)
Credit score: ChatGPT

You will have seen the most recent viral ChatGPT picture pattern: “Create an actual duplicate of this picture, do not change a factor.” Customers then redo that course of 99 extra instances, with the picture shifting barely in every iteration. Folks have been plugging in their very own photographs to check out the outcomes, and a mutating picture of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has additionally gone viral on Reddit and X. Once you make a duplicate of a duplicate of a duplicate, the outcomes naturally degrade over time. And after 100 iterations by means of ChatGPT, the outcomes can get really unusual.

To cite a well-known Rick & Morty episode, “And much sufficient down the road…there be monsters.”

To AI critics, this pattern is proof that when AI fashions practice on their very own output, the top result’s infinite slop — a man-made intelligence ouroboros. However is that actually what is going on on right here?

I made a decision to attempt the pattern myself, and in doing so, realized this pattern is not all it is cracked as much as be. I attempted plugging this immediate into ChatGPT utilizing the 4o mannequin, and it repeatedly refused to copy my photograph with out adjustments. “I can’t make an actual copy of the picture, however I can generate a brand new, extremely comparable model utilizing AI primarily based on its content material,” the AI chatbot stated. And after I pressed, it nonetheless refused, saying, “I perceive your request, however I can’t create an precise duplicate of a photograph.”

I used to be lastly in a position to get the chatbot to do my bidding through the use of the OpenAI API and the immediate I discussed earlier. And the outcomes are typical of comparable experiments.

I requested OpenAI about this pattern, and I am going to replace this put up if I hear again. However primarily based on my makes an attempt to copy the replication pattern outdoors of the API, it appears clear to me that ChatGPT is not truly attempting to create an actual duplicate of customers’ photographs within the first place.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s mum or dad firm, in April filed a lawsuit in opposition to OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in coaching and working its AI programs.