By Steven Vargas

This is one way that artificial intelligence can output a selection of images based on words and phrases one feeds it. The program gathers possible outputs from its dataset references that it learned from — typically pulled from the internet — to provide possible images.

For some, AI-generated art is revolutionary.

In June 2022, Cosmopolitan released its first magazine cover generated by an AI program named DALL-E 2. However, the AI did not work on its own. Video director Karen X. Cheng, the artist behind the design, documented on TikTok what specific words she used for the program to create the image of an astronaut triumphantly walking on Mars:

“A wide angle shot from below of a female astronaut with an athletic feminine body walking with swagger towards camera on Mars in an infinite universe, synthwave digital art."