We asked artificial intelligence to create South West supervillains – and it terrified us – Somerset Live

We asked a super-intelligent robot artist to create supervillains worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster based on South West places – and it terrified us. The new AI (artificial intelligence) software generated incredible illustrations of unnerving West Country characters based on the characteristics of different counties across the region.

Image-generating AIs are trained on a gigantic volume of images from across the internet. Their algorithms process the wide range of images, and then when given human text prompts, they are able to produce unique photos, art and illustrations of virtually any subject in any style imaginable.

They have taken the world by storm and exploded in popularity, with the software already improving massively since it became widely available in the last 12 months. Somerset Live has used Midjourney AI for an experiment aiming to create supervillains unique to places across the South West.

We asked the AI to create cinematic supervillains based on the landscape, people, history and traditions of individual counties across the region. The counties included are Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Devon and Cornwall, as well as the City of Bristol.

After being provided with short and simple text prompts for each county, the powerful software produced an array of remarkable characters within seconds. The villains are both fascinating and nightmare-inducing in equal measure.

Cornwall’s characters appear to draw on old tales of sailors and mermaids, while a huge stone giant can be seen emerging from the Jurassic coast cliffs of Dorset. In Bristol, an Avonmouth dock crane comes to life in frightening fashion, while in Somerset, a dragon is combined with an apple tree to create a horrifying entity.

Every image created is completely unique, and you can see some of the supervillains below. They were all generated solely by the AI’s algorithms, with no human input other than an original text prompt.

The introduction of image-generating AI has sparked fears for the livelihoods of human artists and photographers. Concerns have been raised about the future of human creativity in the wake of super-smart AI artist bots.

However, some people argue the software could be just another tool in the toolbox of content creators. The AI currently has limitations, and often struggles with basic aspects – including human faces and hands in particular.

Midjourney has come under fire recently after CEO David Holz admitted that the software had been trained on millions of images sourced from across the internet containing work from artists and photographers at all levels without their approval or consent, and with no way of opting-out. The news has outraged some artists, and raised potential copyright infringement worries.

You can take a look below at some of the terrifying South West supervillains generated by Midjourney AI. Have you seen any of these characters out-and-about? Which is your favourite?