Scenes from an AI Airplane Window

In the labyrinth of the internet, I stumbled upon a Reddit gem titled Things you don't want to see from an airplane window, a post that not only entertained but inspired me. The credit goes to the creative prowess of whatdoihia, who masterfully harnessed MidJourney to bring to life the unimaginable from an airplane window. My favorite image is shown below. Amazingly creepy, right!?

The author used his imagination to prompt MidJourney with creative ideas of his own (see the following examples). In particular, this idea is genius — “outside is a giant iceberg, text on wing says ‘Titanic’”! That got me thinking. Can AI come up with its own creative ideas for “things you don’t want to see from an airplane window“?

photo of a plane wing, taken from inside the plane, outside is a giant iceberg, text on wing says "Titanic" --v 6.0
photo of a plane wing, taken from inside the plane, background is prehistoric Earth with dinosaurs wandering the land --v 6.0

I decided to use ChatGPT 4/DALL-E 3 (ChatGPT) to see how creative it can be not only to come up with concepts for the airplane window but also to generate images of those concepts. I started simply by prompting ChatGPT with, “image of something you don't want to see from an airplane window“, which resulted in the following. I was immediately impressed with ChatGPT’s “creativity” despite the extraneous octopus tentacles.

I continued with “try again“ prompts, to which ChatGPT responded with the following. I love that in the first image, ChatGPT misplaced the fuselage windows on the wing! Just as in human creativity, its imperfections make it interesting.

Unfortunately, as shown below, I couldn’t get ChatGPT to generate anything humorous or satirical. Don’t worry ChatGPT. It’s not you. It’s me. I only used simple prompts like “make it funnier“ and “use satire”. I was really hoping ChatGPT would blow me away with a representation of Boeing’s 737 recent blunders. Instead, ChatGPT chose to use silly ducks.

Next, I asked ChatGPT to “make it look like something from the Twilight Zone“. The first generation was bad, so I simply asked it to “try again“, which resulted in the following. I don’t think it is representative of the Twilight Zone, but it’s cool nonetheless.

I also tried interjecting another cinematic theme with “use a scene from Flash Gordon”, which didn’t produce a result in line with the “airplane window“ topic, so I prompted, “make it more realistic from an airplane window point of view“. See the results below.

I also tried prompts like “use something more terrifying“ and “make it more realistic“:

Lastly, I tried to incorporate a monster, but it took some repetitive prompting. I started with, “image of something you don't want to see from an airplane window. Incorporate a realistic monster“. Subsequent prompts were, as follows:

try again
good but the perspective of the wing is wrong. try again
you are getting off track. start from the beginning. image of something you don't want to see from an airplane window. Incorporate a realistic monster in the scene from the vantage point of the airplane window.
good but put the monster on the wing
good, but make it look real
i'm not convinced. take your time

The final prompt yielded an impressive result, despite the robotic monster missing a leg:

Continuing with the monster motif, I prompted, “image of something you don’t want to see from an airplane window. Use a monster’s face outside the window“. ChatGPT didn’t disappoint, delivering the following frightening images. The enhanced perspective in the second image emerged from my additional prompt of “zoom out on the monster’s face.”

The adventure through AI-generated images left me with a collection of images ranging from the awe-inspiring to the comically absurd. Beyond the initial entertainment value, this experiment offered a deeper reflection on the relationship between human creativity and AI's capabilities. There's a twinge of sadness in acknowledging that the bastion of creativity isn't solely a human domain anymore. Yet, this revelation is tempered with excitement at the prospect of charting unexplored territories where the fusion of human and AI creativity could lead us.

As I lay down my digital pen and attempt to drift off to sleep, the images conjured by AI linger in my mind's eye—a testament to the power of technology to inspire, amuse, and provoke thought. The journey through AI's interpretation of the world from an airplane window is not just about what we wish to avoid seeing but about pushing the limits of imagination.