Let’s play a game!
Now that the v5 beta of the Midjourney AI is producing cars that are closer to real life, I decided ask it to depict ugly cars again. Only this time I wouldn’t provide any reference photos. Just “the ugliest car in the world” and some parameters to set the city scene and photo style.
It made pictures of some pretty ugly cars. But there was also a certain percentage that were pretty… pretty. So I asked for “the most beautiful car in the world.” The vast majority were attractive, but some were questionable.
With either prompts, some of the cars depicted are easily recognizable as actual cars are from an alternate universe (which, admittedly, are the most fun).
Below there are fifty pictures. Half of them the AI thought were beautiful, half of them it decided were ugly. Can you tell which are which?
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
Don’t know where many of these cars came from. Many look like versions of familiar combinations of 50s and 60s American autos. Anyway there is not a single car that I would want! Of course we all have our own tastes! None of these is beautiful for me!🤮😎
Number 21 is fine with me.. Reminds me of GM late, late 60’s.
Not sure what the boxes over the headlights do…or is this something the artist needs to touch up…even Rembrandt made changes to his work
Good lord. There are so many levels of hideous here. And to be honest, nothing I’d say I’d spend my money on or be seen in. Well done, and the Multipla and Aztek are nowhere to be seen….
This is sort of like looking at South American or Australian cars. Familiar, yet unfamiliar.
“Sort of looks like this, but it also looks like that.” Glad to see that v5 has done away with the mutant background people– no more three-legged men with one of the legs taken from a cow.
#’s 18 and 46 are two I liked the look of.
# 46 reminds me of Skoda 1202 from the early 60’s.
Besides the obvious Mercedes, Aston Martins and Bentley, most of the non sports cars can be related to one of the Big Three, many of them in British or Australian clothing…Most sedans have suicide rear doors, and those that look like Fords have 4 bold letters in the hood. Then again, as to what the AI might classify as ugly or beautiful, no idea.
There was a cartoon in a magazine article (which I can’t find now), 3 panels; the scene is a kitchen with a mother cooking and 2 kids are sitting at the table. There’s a clock on the wall, typical kitchen appliances, and the mother and children are talking.
In the 2nd panel, the clock numbers look a little odd, the words people are talking are spelled differently, and there’s an appliance you can’t identify. 3rd panel, the clock looks really weird, the words and letters people are speaking are unintelligible, and their hairstyles and dress are really strange.
The point was, if certain events in past history were even SLIGHTLY different, the ramifications going forward would have dramatic effects on what we call “normal”. That’s what these cars remind me of. I can certainly picture some of these cars being built, if only THIS person rather than THAT person had been hired to work in the styling studio, for example.
Fashion modeling may be a dying occupation, as clothing companies are going to start using AI-generated models to “wear” the clothes. And the advertiser can “dial-in” the level of beauty, plainness, striking features, race, ethnicity, body size and shape desired without relying on human models. The AI people look like unique and realistic individuals. This sort of thing is going to spread all over.
Excellent observation, Stephen. Taking a different turn in style, even with the same beginning, can give quite a different outcome.
Interesting that the AI can’t improve on the Merecdes and Jaguar.
As we see these advances in AI work, the question I’m beginning to ask myself is whether design is an endangered occupation.
They are all fundamentally believable. By which I mean if you showed them to a random person on the street or a family member that used cars as transportation rather than minor fetish object they wouldn’t likely push back on any of them and would find them all at least somewhat familiar. 42 is probably the least likely to be real, although when Ford started putting oval grilles on everything including the rectangle Econoline 20+ years ago that gets kind of close to this one…
Other than that, this is basically The Twilight Zone’s “Eye Of The Beholder” episode. Who are we to judge beauty or the opposite or rather, who is to say which view is the correct one.
The beautiful:
1 2 3 4 5 9 11 13 15 18? 20 21 24 27 28 29 30 31 33 35 37 38? 39 41 46
The ugly – others.
Basically, beautiful cars include vintage muscle cars, icons like the ’60 Cadillac (i think), Jaguars, Ferraris and other exotic sports cars, and maybe unobtrusive ’90s sedans.
Ugly cars include overwrought finned late ’50s and early ’60s Detroiters, Communist-bloc-looking cars, and related. 08 is the weirdest, a Ford Falcon/early ’60s Buick mashup.
I’ll just say that these cars are decidedly less creepy, and the same goes for the backgrounds, than the last time you posted a slate of AI-designed cars. Given that was really only a few months ago, I guess that’s testimony to just how fast this stuff is “learning”. And that, is scary (IMO).
As to the cars, I have to say that I’m surprised that there were not more real cars like #36 with the pointy fins on the front. That’s kind of neat, although I suspect that the AI thinks that’s an ugly one.
Also, I really like #39! It’s what Cadillac might have come up with if they’d decided to make (or there was a market for) the Cimarron 22 years earlier. I’m seeing the front end of a 61 Cadillac grafted onto the body of an Impala. Perfect. 😉
It’s a cross between 1959 and 1960 Cadillac front ends. And since these Cadillacs actually did share bodies with 1959-1960 Chevrolets, it wouldn’t be that hard to recreate one in real life. 🙂
Scary it is. I feel with AI us humans once again are heedlessly following a path which should not be taken, or at the very least severly limited (I could cite a recent example of how research which should never have taken place went wrong but my comment may get deleted. Feel free to guess what I am getting at).
It’s getting better, mighty quickly.
They’re almost getting too good (realistic). Very believable. The cars in my dreams aren’t this close to reality.
I love the few minor things it gets wrong, like way too many horizontal cross bars on the grille of the 60s Mercedes sedan.
My personal favorite minor error is the little car in the background of Picture 32 that seems to be sporting a bicycle tire for its right front wheel.
#36. A 61 Lincoln with a lot of styling carry overs from the 59-60 Lincolns.
Weird.
Number 8 looks like a 61 Cadillac inspired grille on a Ford Falcon body.
I love these photos. The Charger with the Super Bee grille is interesting.
AI does mangle the alphabet though, on the signs on the storefronts.
Thanks for posting these!
I wouldn’t want to get impaled on those front-facing fins.
2: Chrysler
3: GM
16: Yikes! Too narrow.
18: Overweight, every one of big 3.
30: GM overweight
31: WTF wipers?
38: GM very overweight
44: Falcon missing front hood edge trim
49: Buick Corvette
50: Missing Fiat Croma/Saab 9000 group car, maybe from China.
ANSWER KEY
The AI thought the even-numbered cars were ugly.
It thought the odd-numbered cars were beautiful.
The AI is a little insane.
10 gets my vote for ugliest.
26 isn’t too bad.
32 = if Ford made a Corvair
34 = Wasn’t Chevy toying with a center headlight in ‘59 or ‘60?
38 = Alternate universe ‘71 Impala.
43 = GM longer, lower, wiiiiiiiiiiider.
The extra mirrors notwithstanding, I rather like 45.
Most of these look quite plausible.
I would love to see what an AI program would do with a truly odd looking real car. For example, take my Tatra T2-603 sedan. [Or for almost any 1934 to 1975 Tatra automobile.]
Another interesting car to have AI modify is the 1959 Auto Union 1000 SP coupe or convertible, I would love to see if the AI created another example that was closer to the ’57 T-Bird they are often compared to.
AI has nothing on Virgil Exner. The early 60s Chrysler products, especially the prototypes, evoke the same uncanny valley feeling as all of these.
03 – ’68 Impala from the passenger compartment on back, with a ’73ish Gran Torino nose
10 – Checker emulates Exner
16 – a product of AMC Europe
28 – Hyundai moves up c. 1997
32 – a neutered ’61 Pontiac Tempest
41 – Mustang/Camaro hybrid
44 – Falcon/Comet/Chevy II mishmash
45 – an evolved ’62 Edsel after Ford lured Virgil Exner away from Chrysler
46 – perhaps a MG built under license in Borduria
48 – 85% ’63 Chev with 15% Ford mixed in
49 – sort of an Olds Toronado-‘Vette hybrid
50 – JDM early-’90s Lexus offshoot
I want #10 or #14 just so that I can flash a big scary car face back at all of the big scary truck faces out there today. Hey truck face! Yeah you.
I like 1 through 4 (ignoring the weird beltline on the last).
39 is an interesting mashup of the 59/60 Cadillac front and greenhouse with 60 Ford side trim and fins.
10 and all of its derivatives (12, 14, 26, and 45) are terribly overwrought and ugly.
44 is what the 63 Ford would look like if quad round headlights had never been approved.
Those alternate-universe Falcons (18 and 22) are fascinating if not exactly pretty.
48 looks like an alternate 63 Fairlane.
24 shows promise as a Buick with some Olds overtones — just reduce the size of the front fender blades.
I’m liking 29 as a sporty car.
16 is a complete failure — the proportions are all wrong for such a small car. The same is true but in the opposite sense for 36 — way too big and those forward-pointed fins!
34 is a fascinating 60 Chevy alternative with conventional A-pillars and slab sides — just remove the Cyclops light along with the driving lights on the bumper top.
Correction: Alternate-universe Falcons are 8 (not 18) and 22.
No 6 fascinates me – clearly a realistic Consul/Moskvitch mashup that looks like it could have been an Argentinian or Mexican car.
The front end has vague similarities to an Isabella prototype, so I’ll go with that…