From Purple Rain to Panda: AI as an Antidote to Lack of Human Creativity in Defense + AI illustrations

You want AI-enabled Augmented Reality goggles on the head of a camel in a Times Square full of garden gnomes in military uniform? Bob's your uncle.

AI is getting creative

The illustration above this article contains six images created by AI. All have been created on the theme of 'AI and defense', but you can probably guess which one had a 'panda bear' style thrown in and which one a reference to the cover of Prince's Purple Rain album...

Image generators like DALL-E, DeepAI and Canva - the last two used to create the six images above - have become mainstream in no time. These generators are based on an algorithm that has been trained on a vast dataset of images and their descriptions.

The results are quite impressive. The apps can quickly generate images, from realistic photos to absurd portraits, to any type of image that somehow depicts AI itself. You want AI-enabled Augmented Reality goggles on the head of a camel in a Times Square full of garden gnomes in military uniform? Bob's your uncle.

The sky is the limit, but nobody flies

So what you would expect is that articles about AI and defense (or any article on AI for that matter) would increasingly feature super cool and interesting illustrations. The reality, however, is very disappointing. I see this on a daily basis as I scroll through many articles for our RAINCLOUD platform.

So what does the average image on AI (and defense) look like? It is quite extraordinary how much they all look the same in terms of themes, colors and composition. In this article I give you some examples of the main characteristics and visual components.

An Italian renaissance man can't be wrong

The first designer who thought of it had an interesting, creative take on AI and specifically the human-machine interaction part of it. The copies, perhaps mimicking modern-day imitations of classic master pieces, are dull. See for yourself in the image below in which I have combined several examples. I can assure you that you can find many more online.

Hands are good, brains are better

Wait, isn't AI all about Artificial General Intelligence and machines mimicking the cognitive functions of human beings? Let's put in a brain in the illustration!

What you see here even clearer than in the previous collage is that the world of AI illustrations ironically takes us back to the monochrome times of the early days of computing. The world of AI and defense is blue with sometimes a hint of red or, if you are lucky, a color that only Prince would sing about.

The world of AI and defense is also virtually always painted on a canvas of nodes, large strings of zeros and ones or computer code.

The world of AI illustrations ironically takes us back to the monochrome times of the early days of computing.

More is more

But then some editors went: 'I like that brain but what is it doing floating about by itself? We need a hand to interact with it!' It does not have to be a robotic or renaissance hand; any hand will do.

For most of the images above I did not even understand what message they are trying to convey. Is it perhaps the wishful thinking of the human still trying to be in control of the brain, despite the encroachment of AI?

Defense + AI

Although many of the above images have been used as illustrations in articles about military applications of AI, there have been attempts to create some more specific images. However, these efforts generally result in a combination of the standard elements (and color) shown above with some soldiers, military vehicles or equipment.

Yes, things become a bit more exciting but overall it is the same sad result...

Is there no creativity at all?

Of course there are exceptions (and yes, my selections were naturally as biased as some of the AI systems that got the articles in my live feed in the first place). Here is a good one that nicely shows the connections between sensors, soldiers and platforms.

And sometimes a simple montage can look really good, like this one from the Financial Times.

Also, without human creativity there wouldn't be any large datasets of images for AI systems to train on.

We can do better with AI

I still think, however, that the media can do much better. The exciting world of AI deserves better illustrations. It deserves more variety and more color. Not every media outlet has the budget for a professional graphic designer, but everyone now has generative AI. Let's use it!

And if it has been used already - some of the above images may have been created with the very AI image generators I am promoting here - the designers just need to spend a bit more time on the 'human-machine teaming' involved when using generative AI. Patience and creative prompts are key. It can even get you an album cover that the late Prince could be proud of.