Copilot

Microsoft have been rolling out their AI app called Copilot, and a short while ago, after a Windows update, I noticed a new and colourful icon at the bottom right of my laptop screen. I left it alone until yesterday, when an experimental tap opened up a wide sidebar on the right-hand edge of the screen. 

It invited me to create something. So being frivolous, I asked Copilot to 'create a green dragon in a bowl of custard, breathing fire'. 

Well, Copilot obliged! I was presented with four AI-generated pictures of a dragon in a bowl of custard, being fiery. I scrolled through them, and chose what I thought was the most realistic, in the sense that if I ever came across a dragon sitting in a bowl of custard, this is how it would appear.  

I think that's a pretty good effort. It could be tweaked further of course, but for a first try Copilot has given me an unexpectedly polished result. The 'artwork' seems faultless. Yes, it's a bit Disneyish, but there's no mistaking what it is, and it's very much what I had in mind. Putting it another way: given this, would I commission a human artist to create a similar picture for me? Not when Copilot can come up with this. 

But I thought Copilot should face sterner tests before giving it an unequivocal thumbs-up. I next asked the app to 'create a picture of a 2015 Volvo XC60 driving on a mountain road, in rainbow colours'. Well, I got this:

Actually, I first asked for a 2016 Volvo XC60, the same year of manufacture as Sophie, but it gave me an XC60 with the new body shape introduced in 2018. I therefore brought the manufacturing year forward to 2015, so that there ought to be no mistake whatever about the body styling. But it hasn't worked. Copilot isn't (yet) sophisticated enough to get styling details absolutely right. Apart from that, the rainbow effects are very much overdone. In fact it looks twee. The car might as well be accompanied by dancing fairies, unicorns and pink ponies. 

Very well: let's get dark and moody, and create a serious picture of doom, despair and tragic loss. I asked Copilot to 'create a picture of the steamship Titanic sinking in fog'. I thought of the powerful 1997 film. I had a particular scene or two in my head:

At first I got four rather staid and disappointing scenes of a multi-funnelled steamship in old-fashioned sepia. They looked like contemporary postcards from 1912. So I added, 'in colourful light'. The result was unfortunate. 

I didn't intend this. By 'colourful light' I meant masthead lighting, the odd searchlight, and various distress flares. Instead it looks as if the Titanic is hove to, fully afloat, in a calm sea, and everyone's having a ball. An amazing firework display will begin at any moment. No hint at all that anything is wrong - except perhaps the flotsam littering the water, which could simply be little bits of ice. I'm once again perfectly happy with the standard of the 'artwork'. But how could Copilot associate such playful party lights with the horror of the real-life disaster? Surely the name 'Titanic' by itself determines the prevailing mood, and those colours would need to be fitful and sombre by default?

So it's not a very successful experiment overall. Clearly you have to be very specific about what you ask Copilot to do. 

Is it useful to me personally? No. I don't want to make pictures this way. It bothers me that the results, though accomplished, are generic and obviously derived from existing photos and artwork. Yes, it's a very quick and easy way to produce a nice picture. But a stab in the back, surely, for any commercial artist needing to make a living.