How committed are you to coriander?

Singaporeans of all ages gathered together to participate in a lesser-known coriander competition. The featured participants ranged from rows of youth to elderly men, all indulging in mounds of the herb.

Upon seeing the images online, netizens were on the fence about the popularity of the competition. Some expressed their strong dislike for coriander, while others encouraged their friends to join in. A few sharp-eyed netizens were suspicious of the images, stating the competition setting looked less like Singapore and leaned more toward Malaysia or Vietnam. They were rightfully suspicious, as the images were actually doctored and posted by Singaporean freelance graphic designer CYGIG on Midjourney’s Facebook page.

Image Credit: CYGIG CYGIG generated the images using Midjourney and an open-source software called Upscayl. A significant number of eating competition AI images have been circulating the net, and CYGIG was inspired to create their own eating images, with a distinct Singaporean flavour. AI in consumer entertainment vs ethical use

Midjourney, a popular artificial intelligence (AI) application is renowned for “creating” the best AI images the internet has seen.

A well-known image creation is that of the Pope, clad in a Balenciaga inspired puffer jacket. More recently, former United States President Donald Trump shared a viral set of images depicting his life as a prison inmate.

CYGIG explained: “I realised most people from the Midjourney Facebook group are simply having fun, so I thought it would be nice to show the fun side of AI images.”

However, the rise of AI has prompted concerns about its ethics. A controversial AI-image was submitted for the coveted World Photography Competition. Although it turned out to be an experiment on the artist’s part, it raised questions on whether there should be more red-tape to determine the authenticity of images.

In 2022, a Colorado State Fair’s annual art competition dubbed an AI-generated piece the winner, which set off a fierce backlash from artists, who then accused the winner of cheating.

The debate has made artists and creators nervous about their future in art with the existence of AI, leaving them wondering why anyone would consider paying for art, when they could generate it themselves. The controversy over new art-making technologies continues, with some artists embracing AI, stating that creating a piece using AI is no different from using Photoshop or other digital image-manipulation softwares. At the end of the day, technology will continue advancing. The ethics isn’t in the technology, it is in the people who utilise it.