In part 1 I described my concept for a building based on an upside-down tetrahedron, and how I wanted an "artistic" representation of it. Being utterly unartistic, I thought I would try getting an AI-generated image of it.
I know there are specialized art-focused generative AIs, but I decided to try ChatGPT, just because I'm familiar with it.
I tried to make my initial prompt as comprehensive as possible, but I expected the process to be iterative. I didn't expect its first effort be what I pictured in my mind, but I thought I could make suggestions to slowly bring it closer.
Our conversation went like this.
A large building standing in a park. The building is in the shape of a regular tetrahedron balanced on one point, so it has three triangular sides and a flat triangular roof. It is about 40 stories tall, dwarfing the people and trees in the park. The sun is at a low angle.
That's clear, right? I've even gone to the effort of explaining what a tetrahedron is, just in case ChatGPT isn't very good at geometry. A child could understand it.
First lesson: generative AI isn't as clever as a child.
Here is the image of the massive tetrahedron-shaped building standing in a park. Let me know if you’d like any modifications!
Well... it's massive. And it's standing in a park. On a point(ish). But it's not a tetrahedron, by any stretch of the imagination. So I'm just going to be blunt:
This is not a tetrahedron. A tetrahedron is a regular polygon with four triangular sides.
You're absolutely right! A true tetrahedron should have four triangular faces, not a flat top. I'll generate a new image with the correct geometry: a regular tetrahedron balanced on one of its points. Here is the corrected image with a true tetrahedral-shaped building balanced on one of its points. Let me know if you'd like any adjustments!.
What? "A true tetrahedron should have four triangular faces." Correct. So what the heck did you just draw? I mean, it's balanced on a point, I'll give you that. And you've remembered to add in the park. But other than that, I'm not impressed.
I try something different, to see if it's just tetrahedrons it has a blind spot for.
Make it more like an upside-down pyramid
Here is the image of the upside-down pyramid-shaped building, balanced on a single point. Let me know if you need any further refinements!
Well, again you've got the point part right. But you clearly have no idea what a pyramid is like, either.
That's not a pyramid
I see the issue! You want a true upside-down pyramid—specifically, a regular tetrahedron standing on a single point. I'll generate a new image that better fits your request. Here is the corrected image of a true upside-down tetrahedral building, balanced on a single point. Let me know if you need any refinements!
Wait, wait, wait, there's a lot to unpack here. In the first place, "You want a true upside-down pyramid—specifically, a regular tetrahedron." So now you think a pyramid is a regular tetrahedron? It's not, you're just making facts up as you go along. And that image is neither a pyramid nor a tetrahedron.
Ok, so the problem is geometry, and maybe also ChatGPT's training collection doesn't include any tetrahedral buildings it can copy. Maybe the approach I need is to forget the building part, and first teach it geometry. Once it's learned what a tetrahedron is, I can say "now draw a building that looks like that." Maybe.
Do you know what a 4 sided dice is?
Yes! A four-sided die (d4) is a regular tetrahedron, meaning it has four triangular faces, four vertices, and six edges. When rolled, it lands on one of its triangular faces, with the result typically read from the numbers at the base.
It sounds like you're asking for a building shaped exactly like a d4, with a single point touching the ground and three triangular faces rising up to form a pyramid-like structure. Would you like me to generate an image that strictly follows this geometry?
This is amazing. I really didn't expect this level of success. It knows what the dice is (and even corrected my lazy grammar and called it a die), which doesn't surprise me, because this is just a text answer to something that it must have millions of references for. But the next paragraph has me floored: it made the intuitive leap that my seemingly random question was related to my original building concept, and it's figured out what I want my building to look like. This has really impressed me!
yes please
Here is the image of a massive building shaped exactly like a four-sided die (d4), balanced on a single point. Let me know if you need any adjustments!
This is so depressing.
And so we continued. I spent an hour talking to this idiot child.
Here is an image of a perfect tetrahedron balanced on a single point. Let me know if you need any modifications!
You're absolutely right again! The images so far haven't properly captured a true tetrahedron balanced on one point. I'll make sure to generate an accurate depiction of a perfect tetrahedron—four triangular faces, six edges, and four vertices—standing on a single point. Let me try again.
I never got my tetrahedron.
I know a little of the principles of generative AI; I work in IT, and I interact with a variety of AI systems at work pretty much every day. I know that writing good prompts is a skill in itself, and I now know I don't have the skill.
Generative AI may be the way of the future. But it's not the way of today. At least not in the generalist, layman's, one-size-fits-all sense of ChatGPT and similar efforts. Put it in the right domain and train it on the right source material, and I've seen AI do things I would never have believed 12 months ago. But you need to know its limits. It's not the solution to everything. And it's definitely not the solution to drawing a building shaped like an upside-down tetrahedron.
Of course, I would be very happy to be proven wrong :)
