Every so often, when I’m feeling lonely or overcome with a creeping fascination about the future of technology, I dabble with ChatGPT to see what it’s capable of. Some of the time I come away delightfully surprised, sometimes I’m entertained, and sometimes I’m left feeling like a complete jack-ass.
Sometimes it can be a helpful tool, too: like when our wonderful graphic designer is away on holidays, and gave me his blessing to call on ChatGPT’s DALL-E image generator for a very specific project.
You see, I’ve always wanted to create a t-shirt that pays homage to one of my favourite cities and one of my favourite races on the WorldTour calendar, the Tour Down Under in Adelaide. Or, as the die-hards like to call it, RADelaide – because it’s true.
With Tom away and the clock ticking to get these t-shirts printed, I sat down with DALL-E and pushed it to its limits.
Here’s how it went down:
Hmm… the colour palette was in the right ballpark, even if I have some questions about the spelling – but it’s still not quite right. Let’s go again:
The movie poster for RAD features a BMX rider, so I don’t know quite how DALL-E made the jump to road cycling, but it’s useful creative license for it to have taken. We’re getting closer, but let’s push this a little more:
Ah yes, RAiD RaLDE, I know it well. Getting there…
The Australiana really adds something, I think you’ll agree, even if DALL-E’s understanding of a kangaroo’s anatomy feels a little flawed. But can we take it further?
A Grizzly bear eating a hamburger and on a surf board? A kangaroo/wallaby hybrid with a hookah pipe? The Statue of freakin’ Liberty? This is awesome. I’ve never been more inspired.
I think we can agree that the man ripping his bike to pieces is a nice touch, along with the fact that every animal looks like it wants to kill you (fact check: accurate). This is SICK! The only thing that could improve it: more bears eating hamburgers:
Now, GET THAT BEAR ON A SURFBOARD!
Glorious. Now give me a drop bear. And not just any drop bear – a drop bear on a bike:
Now can we put some more shrimp on the barbie?
Whew… too far, too far.
Let’s dial it back a notch and go with one of the only ones that actually spelled ‘Radelaide’ correctly. And one final point of order: touching base with Graphic Design Tom for his seal of approval: “These are amazing! I honestly couldn’t get anywhere near this good 
“
Nailed it, DALL-E.
See you at the Tour Down Under. You can buy this godawful t-shirt here (note: pre-order by Monday 8 Jan for collection at the race, or we can ship it to your door thereafter):
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