AI-Generated Image of “Loab” Goes Viral as a Symbol of Artificial Intelligence’s Distorted Reality
Swedish artist Supercomposite created an AI-generated image that has become an Internet sensation. The image of “Loab” is produced by entering the request “The opposite of a beautiful woman” into a generator of images on artificial intelligence (AI). The results show a woman’s face with dead eyes, an empty look, and a terrible grin, often against the backdrop of terrible scenes with blood and screams.
Loab has gained so much popularity that she now has her own Wikipedia page. The name was given by Supercomposite, who experimented with negative requests in April 2022. He was struck by how easily AI reproduced Loab’s face with different variations of the request.
However, Loab is not a real person; she is purely a product of AI’s ability to create images based on text requests. AI uses neural networks that study a large amount of data and mimic what they see. Loab is what AI considers the opposite of a beautiful woman, a symbol of how AI can distort reality and create nightmares.
The artist Supercomposite refers to Loab as a “throne,” a form of art during the Golden Age of Holland that depicted an idea or allegory rather than a specific person. Loab is an allegory of horror that AI can generate. “She finds everyone sooner or later. You just need to know where to look,” warns Supercomposite.
It is recommended that people who want to try the AI-generated image generator exercise caution and not enter negative or provocative requests that may lead to unwanted results. Loab serves as a chilling reminder of AI’s power to distort reality in unexpected and potentially disturbing ways.