Google has developed artificial intelligence that's capable of creating images based on simple text input. Imagen, as it's known, is said to easily outperform the competition to create realistic artwork based on the user's words.

We've seen tech like this before, where Generative Adversarial Networks and AI like VQ-GAN+CLIP, Latent Diffusion Models and DALL-E 2 can be used to create interesting images.

Indeed we've used AI before to create intriguing portraits of people. But Imagen promises an "unprecedented degree of photorealism and a deep level of language understanding".

Imagen comes from Google Research's Brain Team. That team says Imagen works so well due to a breakthrough in the training model whereby scaling the language model helped improve performance. It's still early days, but Imagen could represent an interesting view of the future where AI could be used to create images in place of Photoshop.

Though it's not available to the public yet, Imagen has been used to conjure up some pretty impressive images.

An astronaut racoon

AI can create brilliant images using just text photo 1
Google Research, Brain Team

As you'll see from these images, Google's AI is able to create some amusingly quirky images with just a few words.

This one was made using the phrase:

"A photo of a raccoon wearing an astronaut helmet, looking out of the window at night."

A happy corgi

AI can create brilliant images using just text photo 2
Google Research, Brain Team

That is one happy pup. Looking at some of these images, it's hard to believe that they were created by AI rather than real photographs and a dash of Photoshop.

Yet this one was just crafted from the text - "A cute corgi lives in a house made out of sushi."

A corgi in Times Square

AI can create brilliant images using just text photo 3
Google Research, Brain Team

Imagen can seemingly craft detailed images by understanding the requirements of language and the multiple things you ask it to include.

Request "A photo of a Corgi dog riding a bike in Times Square. It is wearing sunglasses and a beach hat." and that's what you get.

Space brain

AI can create brilliant images using just text photo 4
Google Research, Brain Team

Some of the AI-created images are clearly a touch more obscure and abstract than others, but no less impressive when you consider the requirements of the user.

Here one of the researchers had requested an image of "A brain riding a rocketship heading towards the moon."

Glass balls splashing

AI can create brilliant images using just text photo 5
Google Research, Brain Team

As well as the abstract, Imagen can produce believable and realistic photos of real-world objects and events.

Here a request for three glass balls splashing into water near a sunset was faithfully created.

Glass duck

AI can create brilliant images using just text photo 6
Google Research, Brain Team

We're impressed by the range of art this AI can create. It's not just animals or portraits of people but a whole range of things.

"A transparent sculpture of a duck made out of glass. The sculpture is in front of a painting of a landscape."

Sprouting text

AI can create brilliant images using just text photo 8
Google Research, Brain Team

This one might look more like a classic stock image than a photo made by AI but it's still a result of what was requested.

"Sprouts in the shape of text 'Imagen' coming out of a fairytale book."

Flooded art

AI can create brilliant images using just text photo 9
Google Research, Brain Team

This image has a real dystopian vibe to it. Where the AI has created an image seemingly showing a flooded art gallery being viewed by robots.

"An art gallery displaying Monet paintings. The art gallery is flooded. Robots are going around the art gallery using paddle boards."

Cool cactus

AI can create brilliant images using just text photo 10
Google Research, Brain Team

If you're in the desert, then it's best to try to stay cool. This cactus is certainly managing to.

"A small cactus wearing a straw hat and neon sunglasses in the Sahara desert."

The bird

AI can create brilliant images using just text photo 11
Google Research, Brain Team

Here the AI has seemingly created an image of a bird that looks severely disappointed that you'd dare to eye up its macaroons.

An angry turtle

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Google Research, Brain Team

This is about as weird and wonderful as things can get.

"A chrome-plated duck with a golden beak arguing with an angry turtle in a forest."

Robot's drinking

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Google Research, Brain Team

These robots are seemingly having a romantic time drinking wine in front of the Eiffel tower.

We love that given the instruction to show a couple of robots fine dining, the AI chose to give the robots two drinks each.

An intelligent octopus

AI can create brilliant images using just text photo 14
Google Research, Brain Team

Imagine having an AI that you could use to create any image you wanted with just a short sentence. What would you make?

"An alien octopus floats through a portal reading a newspaper."

A DJ'ing koala

AI can create brilliant images using just text photo 15
Google Research, Brain Team

"A marble statue of a Koala DJ in front of a marble statue of a turntable. The Koala has wearing large marble headphones."