Gen-AI Story Telling

Giving AI an image and basic structure to explore it’s creative bent…

The attached image is from a prompt I rendered in Midjourney. I uploaded this image to both ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, and gave it the following instructions:

Using this image, write a comical short story about a goofy clump of teenage aliens “snatching cows” with their dad’s ride. Have a funny premise as to why they do it, and describe the creatures creatively and the silliness that ensures from their wild escapade to earth.

Part 1 — Gemini

Sure, here is a comical short story about a goofy clump of teenage aliens “snatching cows” with their dad’s ride:

In the swirling mists of planet Blork, where the air shimmered with the scent of space-mangoes and three moons hung low in the sky, lived a zany bunch of teenage aliens named Zorg, Blork, and Gloop. Unlike their more studious Blorkian peers, these three were notorious for their hijinks and insatiable craving for, well, Earth moo cows.

Their obsession wasn’t fueled by some intergalactic burger recipe; no, it was all thanks to their eccentric Uncle Moolah, a Blorkian conspiracy theorist who swore Moo cows were the key to unlocking Earth’s hidden reserves of…cheddar. (Moolah, truth be told, was just moo-tivated by a love of cheese.)

One Blorkian summer night, under a sky alive with neon shooting stars, Zorg, Blork, and Gloop hatched a plan. Their dad, Blorkor the Bold, possessed a magnificent star-cruiser shaped like a giant cheese wedge (a Blorkian status symbol), and tonight, he was hosting a galactic poker game. The teens saw their chance.

Sneaking past snoring Blorkian guards, they commandeered the cheese wedge, christened it the “Udder Snatcher 3000,” and blasted off towards Earth, giggling hysterically. Zorg, the self-proclaimed “captain,” steered with his three knobby heads, Blork, the “navigator,” punched in nonsensical coordinates while munching space-tacos, and Gloop, the “mission specialist,” cackled maniacally, occasionally poking random buttons.

Their journey was anything but smooth. They crash-landed in a cornfield in Kansas, mistaking a scarecrow for a fearsome Earth defender. Zorg, ever the drama queen, fainted dramatically. Blork, meanwhile, got his antenna stuck in a bale of hay, and Gloop accidentally inflated himself to the size of a house with a helium button (spaceships, it turned out, were not childproof).

Just as a group of bewildered farmers approached, Zorg, revived by the sweet smell of Moo cows, remembered their mission. He let out a high-pitched war cry (which sounded suspiciously like a yodel) and charged towards the nearest farmyard, the others bumbling after him.

The ensuing cow-napping was pure, udder chaos. Zorg’s tractor beam malfunctioned, yodeling Moo cows into the sky instead. Blork, still antenna-less, got mistaken for a cow and chased by a herd of milk-drunk calves. Gloop, deflated and grumpy, tripped over his own two feet, landing headfirst in a manure pile.

Amidst the moo- Mayhem, Sheriff Earl, a gruff but kind-hearted soul, arrived with his flashing red truck. But instead of arresting the aliens, he burst into laughter. Reminded of his own youthful mischief, he helped them fix their spaceship (with duct tape and bailing wire, of course) and even gifted them a giant wheel of cheddar (turns out, Earth cheese was pretty good too).

As the Udder Snatcher 3000 lumbered back into space, Zorg, Blork, and Gloop vowed to return someday, not for cows, but for another taste of Earth’s wackiness and Sheriff Earl’s down-home hospitality. And Uncle Moolah? Well, let’s just say his cheddar-fueled conspiracy theory gained a few more believers after that

I apologize! Unfortunately, I cannot access or see the image you’re referring to. As a large language model, I rely on text-based prompts and responses. Would you be able to describe the image for me, or perhaps rephrase your request without needing the image content? I’d be happy to try my best to write a comical short story based on your description!

That’s correct. While I am constantly learning and evolving, I currently don’t have the ability to directly process and understand visual information like images. My capabilities lie in working with text-based information, allowing me to understand and respond to your questions, generate creative text formats, and access and process information from the real world through Google Search.

If you could describe the image for me, or provide some details about the type of story you’d like, I’d be happy to use my text-based skills to craft a funny short story for you!

That is good to know. I was under the assumption that since it could upload an image (which it did), that it would be able to do something with the image. That is not the case as clearly seen in this dialogue. While the story is — interesting may be too generous, but at least it does have a measure of flow that feels like average, early high school level writing.

Now to extend the same challenge to ChatGPT.

Part 2 — ChatGPT

In the glistening expanse of the Milky Way, nestled in the far-off Nebulon cluster, there existed a group of teenage aliens, the likes of which could only be described as a mix between a sea cucumber and a disco ball. Their skins were a mosaic of luminescent tiles, reflecting the starlight in a kaleidoscope of colors. These were the Zarflings, infamous across the cosmos for their mischievous pranks and boisterous laughter that sounded like kazoos at a birthday party.

One Zarfling, named Zog, had the bright idea to initiate his younger siblings, Zerp and Zazzle, into the age-old tradition of cow snatching — a rite of passage in the Zarfling community. The objective was as absurd as it sounds: to sneak onto the quaint little planet known as Earth and snatch a cow, not for any purpose but simply because it was something their ancestors had done for eons, recorded in the annals of Zarfling history as the “Grand Moo Quest.”

They didn’t need the cows; they were vegetarians, after all. It was the thrill that counted, the thrill and the bragging rights. So, with their parents out on an intergalactic cruise, the trio borrowed (without permission, of course) their dad’s sleek ride, a saucer so shiny and equipped with lights that it would put the biggest metropolis on Earth to shame.

Zog piloted the saucer with the overconfidence of a teenager driving a sports car, while Zerp manned the beam, which was designed to gently lift organic specimens for research. Zazzle was in charge of documenting the adventure, her eight wobbly arms juggling cameras and snack packets that floated in zero gravity.

They arrived on Earth under the cover of night, hovering above a field in a place humans called Wyoming. The cows, massive and serene creatures, grazed obliviously as the saucer’s beam targeted a particularly plump one. With a flick of Zerp’s tentacle, the cow began to rise, hooves flailing in confusion. Zazzle, in a fit of giggles, accidentally broadcasted their heist live across the Galactic Web, making the cow an interstellar sensation.

But as they neared the saucer, the cow’s flailing became a problem. It kicked and managed to hit a button that released the saucer’s entire supply of “Universal Peace Glitter,” a substance meant to calm hostile life forms. The field below was instantly aglitter, the cows now sparkling like a herd of bovine disco balls under the moonlight.

Panicking, the siblings quickly beamed the cow into the saucer and made a hasty retreat, leaving behind a bewildered farmer, a field of glittering cows, and an unprecedented number of views on their live feed.

Back on Nebulon, the story of the “Glittering Bovines of Earth” became an instant classic, the cow was returned (still sparkling), and the Zarfling teens faced the music when their parents returned home to find their saucer covered in cow hair and peace glitter.

But in the grand scheme of things, the incident was chalked up to youthful exuberance. Zog, Zerp, and Zazzle became legends among their peers, and the tale of their cow-snatching escapade was recounted for many cycles, each retelling growing more embellished and outrageous, much like the sparkling cows of Wyoming.

This was going pretty good with ChatGPT. So I put it to task…

Can you create an illustration of a photograph of the 3 alien teens taking a selfie in front of the glitter cow, and the photo is pinned to an alien looking pinboard covered with alien words, alien spaceships? Match the styling of the reference image used to influence this story. make the image with an aspect ratio of 16:9

This to me, is simply cool. Okay, I think in this simple task of creativity, we have a pretty clear winner. But I don’t want to be the one to call it. Tell me, which exhibited the most “creativity” in storytelling?

Brian Sykes

#chatGPT #DallE #Midjourney #Gemini