AI Image Creation

[Slim]

I suspect that would work actually. I wasn't necessarily expecting it to recolour the "poker chip" or the knobs and scratchplate, but .it does look exactly like a Studio Les Paul. The only wrinkle is the text on the poker chip.

[Thenop]

It did change the colour of the reflection on the lower pick up.

[Slim]

It did change the colour of the reflection on the lower pick up.

Yes I thought that was odd .. it redid the text on the poker chip as well, badly.

[Slim]

I asked the same AI to furnish a photo from when I was clean shaven with a full beard. Don't have nightmares.

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Then because I've never had dark body hair anywhere, I got Gemini to make it go grey. Can't helping feeling there's a bit of an Uncle Albert vibe.

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[Slim]

"Remove the scratch plate" 

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This is Gemini's effort at "remove the scratchplate". It's also removed the bridge pickup, as you can see.

Impressively, it's also removed one set of volume and tone controls, which is exactly what you'd have on a single pickup guitar.

Funnily enough - this guitar would suit me down to the ground.

It's absolutely seamless - you can't see a transition between the synthetic part of the image and the source. If you photoshopped it you'd never get the strings quite right.

By contrast: I tried exactly the same thing at https://huggingface.co/spaces/multimodalart/Qwen-Image-Edit-Fast and it left the source image unchanged.

Tried "please remove the white plastic part on the right side of the guitar body", same thing. No change. Odd.

[David L]

Perhaps you should have asked - "Lerxstify this guitar" ? I'm sure that would've produced the desired result    

[Slim]

Yes just playing, but this is a field a few km from chez moi:

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"Please add a Space Shuttle on a launch platform, pointing upward, in the medium distance"

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[Thenop]

If you could only launch something like that from a few pallets...I'd want one in my back yard then

[Slim]

I asked ChatGPT the "what would happen" question .. it's not pretty.

T-10 to T-0: no pad systems

• There's no lightning protection, no million-gallon-per-minute water deluge for sound suppression, no flame trench, and probably no proper hold-downs.
• Acoustic loads at liftoff without water suppression go well over 180 dB near the stack—enough to shred nearby kit, crack structures and rattle the orbiter's airframe and tiles to pieces.

T-6.6 s: SSMEs start

• The three Shuttle main engines light first. Their exhaust impinges straight onto soil.
• Result: an instant steam/soil cannon—it scours a crater, throws rocks and mud back up into the engines and the orbiter's belly, and starts grass fires downwind.
• Without a trench, hot gas recirculates under the vehicle, roasting wiring and plumbing. Windows in houses kilometres away pop; the wind turbine's nacelle vibrates itself stupid.

T-0: SRBs ignite

• Two solids come up to full thrust in a few tens of milliseconds. There's no "abort": once lit, they burn for ~2 minutes.
• If the stack is on anything other than a proper Mobile Launch Platform with hold-downs, it rips itself free or topples. Even on a platform, asymmetric blast into a dirt crater can kick the base sideways.

Most likely branch A — RUD on the ground (seconds)

• SRB exhaust (plus soil, stones) sandblasts the boosters; a case gouge or joint leak becomes a catastrophic burn-through.
• The external tank ruptures in the thermal/structural chaos. Liquid oxygen/hydrogen mix and detonate; the solids fragment into several flying, still-burning chunks.
• Fireball height: hundreds of metres. Everything within a few hundred metres is ablaze; trees and hedges go in one go.

Less likely branch B — it clears the "pad"

• It claws into the air trailing an enormous brown-white plume.
• The acoustic and overpressure still flatten outbuildings, smash windows for kilometres, and knock the turbine. Livestock panic; eardrums for anything close are done.
• Range safety doesn't exist here; with populated areas around, you'd have to self-destruct rather than let a 2,000-tonne stack with uncontrollable solids fly an off-nominal trajectory. The destruct turns each SRB into a giant, shredding Roman candle; debris and unburnt propellant rain over many square kilometres.
• If—by miracle—it flies a nominal 2 minutes, the spent boosters separate and fall on land, each the size of a lighthouse, with impact craters and secondary fires from residual propellant.

Aftermath (minutes to hours)

• The SRBs produce hydrogen chloride (HCl) in vast quantities. You get a sharp, acidic cloud drifting downwind: metal corrodes, paint peels, vegetation browns, and ponds turn briefly acidic. Wildlife takes the hit first.
• Emergency services can't get close for a while due to heat, debris, and toxic plume. Power lines are down; minor roads are impassable with grit and shrapnel.

Days to months

• Environmental cleanup: contaminated soil removal, dead fish/birds/livestock disposal, ash and alumina dust everywhere. Insurance nightmare.
• Investigators write a report whose first line is essentially: "Don't try to launch a Shuttle from a field."

[Thenop]

Hmmm. Maybe not then

[Slim]

I've just noticed that it redid the wind turbine! How strange.

[Slim]

Just done a bit of reading about this and although the background looks identical, or very close - the whole thing has been re-rendered. It's a completely synthetic image.

[Slim]

"Certainly! Here's your Lerxstified guitar".

Fascinating. It's applied a headstock (cropped out of the original image) with the nut at the third fret. Looks a bit more like a ukelele. And the inlays at the top are now stars.


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[Thenop]

Oh my god that is horrid. What's next, a whammy bar?

[Slim]

This all makes me think - when someone posts a pic of their new guitar on a guitar forum, well - how can anyone trust that it's really what it purports to be? Would be a simple matter to ask an AI to transform a £350 Epiphone into a Custom Shop 1959 Les Paul reissue. Actually I think I'll try that.

AI image / video generation has changed everything really and there are of course much more sinister applications.