Our concept of art evolves with the passage of time, and undeniably, artificial intelligence and machine learning are the next stepping stone in this evolutionary journey. Although the uniqueness of AI-generated art is debatable for the time being, people and big tech companies alike aren’t afraid to experiment with AI art tools. Proving this point, Google’s Arts & Culture department has four new AI-powered artsy experiments you should check out.
Generating your own art using textual prompts while taking cues from existing masterpieces is a cakewalk with AIs like Midjourney. However, generating your own art may not be fun for everyone. So, Google has a different idea altogether — interactive games that use AI-generated art blended with fun little activity games. These experiments are creations of resident artists at Google’s Arts & Culture Lab, a program running for the last nine years to foster creativity.
XYZ Toy
This intriguing word-guessing game by Gael Hugo uses AI-generated typography on a set of tiles which form a word. You are to guess the word based on the typography and number of letters available to experiment with. For instance, if the letters look like cream cheese on a bagel, and there are five letters in all, the solution would be the word “Bagel.” In XYZ Toy, you guess individual letters in the word to spell it out, but you can guess the incorrect letter only five times, much like the New York Times game, Wordle.
Odd One Out
This is a variation of the real-life Among Us game college professors are playing with assignments right now — telling AI generated content apart from actual human work. Created by Caroline Buttet and Emmanuel Durgoni, Odd One Out tests your ability to find the AI-generated image in the set of four before the clock runs out. Take this for a spin if you suspect you won’t be able to detect AI handiwork when you spot it in the wild.
Un-Dough!
If you’re any good at Geoguessr or take pride in your knowledge of popular monuments and structures, Un-Dough is the game for you. This Google experiment made by Nicolas Barradeau uses AI-generated imagery depicting famous structures or monuments made of dough. Underneath, you’ll see four letters, of which one is certainly in the landmark's name. You can try your luck, but each wrong answer costs you a star, and you only have a finite supply.
Haiku Imagined
We’ve all encountered beautiful haikus on the internet, mostly derived from Japanese poetry. This Google experiment is the brainchild of Lynn Cherny and Christine Surgue, designed to use AI and depict haikus using related videos, letter shapes, and music. You can choose the level of modernity you want from the haiku, and visuals will gradually unravel along with the poetry itself. This could be the break from work you needed, or a quick burst of inspired thinking you were missing.
If anything, these experiments show Google is willing to let the next generation of artists hone their creativity on a digital canvas.
If any of these Google Arts & Culture Lab creations piques your interest, you can check out their dedicated webpages. They are experiments, though, so there may be an undisclosed expiry date associated as well. We encourage you to make the most of it while they are still online.