Make ‘Em Laugh: My AI Blooper Reel

Misadventures in CatGPT and Cat-va!

“My, Grandpa, what a big TAIL you have!” Image generated by author on ChatGPT.

Note: All images were designed by the author with ChatGPT unless otherwise noted.

Some of you may recall an article I wrote back in December about the frustrations I had with generative AI while trying to draw the Jólakötturinn – the Yule cat. Only one was able to get the details correct.

Now, that I’ve started my Etsy shop, I wanted to share a few laughs.

First is the picture on top. I wanted a brown tabby Maine Coon with a giant, fluffy tail.

It gave the cat a raccoon tail. Talk about miscegenation — and not just in name! (Maybe ChatGPT thought a Maine Coon cat was literally crossed with a raccoon?)

Next, there’s a cat that looks as if its arm is growing out of its cheek: I used a headshot of my very own late Persian cat Georgie – and this is what it came up with:

What a pity because it was so pretty with the chiffon, jewels, and carpet!

Then there’s the following…interesting experiment. Let me start with the end product:

Image generated by author on ChatGPT and Canva

But I went through numerous trial and errors before I arrived there. I started with the following:

I thought it was kind of blah, so I started adding to it – changing the tablecloth color, napkins, pretty china, and adding more desserts and drinks.

The only problem is that Canva AI has brain farts. It makes the changes you request along with others you haven’t – even if you explicitly tell it not to!

After an hour, it wound up with this:

Not what I wanted! Although this might inspire a future cat design – LOL.

Particularly trying was the next card – a Himalayan cat reclining in a linen shirtdress and a concho belt in a contemporary living room (ignore the logo).

In case you’re wondering, everything is intentionally coordinated. I specified the paintings, wallpaper, curtains, furniture and flowers – as well as the Felinenista magazine: Notice she’s on the cover.

This, believe it or not, took over two hours because of all the errors on the part of several generative AI’s after I had run out of free credits on ChatGPT earlier in the day with another design.

It was exceptionally frustrating as I attached pictures of the dress and belt with specific prompts for tweaks. ChatGPT usually doesn’t have such issues.

First was this hilarious rendition – look at the expression of the cat on the sofa.

Image designed by the author with AI (Gemini?)

There’s something droll about the way it’s just sitting there, with that giant belt. Like “WHY?”

Then came this with Microsoft:

This was equally frustrating. Regardless of my reminding AI was NOT the belt I wanted, it kept using it at least seven times. I realized that must be the only concho belt it’s ever “seen.”

Notice btw how the “cat” has one human hand and one paw. The head looks like a mask too. At this point, I was dying to get back to ChatGPT.

Finally, remember the picture of the two cats enjoying ChiCATgo from a few weeks ago?

This went through several iterations too. I wanted the cats to look like a romantic couple. But some of the initial expressions were anything but!

Here’s the first one. One big error here was that gave her a navy blue shorts suit when I specified cobalt blue:

What amused me to no end were the expressions – like the one above!

The male (on the left) looks like he just ‘fessed up that he’s been cheating with that young, pretty calico down the street, just barely out of kittenhood. And he is so, so sorry.

ChatGPT still didn’t get the expression right even when they changed the color of the suit:

And then I thought, dang – she is so buttoned up – no wonder he’s banging those other female felines!

It took a while for me to realize I’d forgotten to specify that the jacket is open and she is wearing a red tee underneath. (This is what happens when you never button jackets or coats!) Obviously, the tee is meant to coordinate with the trim on the suit and the purse.

I now desperately begged to make the cats look like they were truly in love.

Evidently, ChatGPT still seemed to equate love with consternation so I got this:

Here, they look like they’ve just gotten some bad news about their stock portfolio: the value of their holdings in Catlogg’s Chicken Flakes has just plunged by a half after the recent bout of bird flu!

At the same time, I realized how silly it was to have them eating a sundae. (Hmmm…why do I have so many dessert pics in my images?!) So I changed to gourmet cat food.

So I begged ChatGPT, please, please, please, make them look happy like the cover of a travel brochure– and got this:

Yikes! They look those crass couples one finds on cruise commercials all the time. So it was such a relief to get this:

The lesson? Making these designs were not as easy as anticipated. And that’s apart from the costs involved like paying for Canva Pro and intellectual property protection — the latter of which necessitates uploading a load of images and prompts with timestamps. I haven’t even gotten around to paying for ChatGPT Pro which I’m planning to get for my birthday in the next few days.

One just needs a good dose of patience and a decent sense of humor!

You can see my Etsy designs here: https://glamourpusscrafts.etsy.com

Here’s my article on the Jólakötturinn:

[embed]Adventures in C(h)atGPT: My Multiple Attempts at “Drawing” the Icelandic Yule Cat with AI I thought my prompts were clear enough!medium.com