Funky AI-generated spiraling medieval village captivates social media

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Enlarge / The original AI-generated spiral village that captivated social media, created using Stable Diffusion and ControlNet. (credit: Ugleh / Stable Diffusion)

On Sunday, a Reddit user named "Ugleh" posted an AI-generated image of a spiral-shaped medieval village that rapidly gained attention on social media for its remarkable geometric qualities. Follow-up posts garnered even more praise, including a tweet with over 145,000 likes. Ugleh created the images using Stable Diffusion and a guidance technique called ControlNet.

Reactions to the artwork online ranged from wonder and amazement to respect for developing something novel in generative AI art. "Never seen pictures like this. Something new in the world of art," wrote one X user. "Tbh, I’ve seen a LOT of ai art, been in this space a long long time, and this is one of the most awesome pieces I’ve ever seen. You did so good," wrote AI artist Kali Yuga on X.

Perhaps most notably, Y-Combinator co-founder and frequent social media tech commentator Paul Graham wrote, "This was the point where AI-generated art passed the Turing Test for me." While Graham was referencing the Turing Test (which purports to test if a machine's behavior is indistinguishable from a human) as a metaphor rather than literally, he was clearly impressed.

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