Google’s latest AI image generation model, Imagen 3, is now available to the public in the US, and all you need to try it out is a free Google account. As spotted by VentureBeatThe company quietly opened up its model this week, publishing its research. In Tuesday’s newspaperThis comes two months after the company first announced the new model during the Google I/O conference last May.
In a post on Hugging Face“We present Imagen 3, a latent diffusion model that generates high-quality images from text prompts,” Google researchers said in their machine learning platform. “We describe our quality and accountability assessments. Imagen 3 is preferred over other state-of-the-art (SOTA) models at the time of evaluation. We also discuss issues related to safety and representativeness, as well as the techniques we used to minimize the potential harm of our models.”
From some initial, non-professional testing on my part, the model seems pretty solid. When asked for real-life images, the results are relatively high quality, with some decent attempts at realism that might fool people at first glance. (I was particularly impressed by the quality of the images when I asked the model to create the look of 35mm film.) Imagen 3 also highlights specific parts of the prompt that affected the output, so you can tweak them if you don’t like the way the image came out.
Copyright: Jake Peterson/Google
However, Imagen 3’s renderings still show signs of AI-generated images. In some images, hands are overexposed, faces are distorted, and text doesn’t make sense. (Though the model was able to accurately reproduce the Coca-Cola and Canon logos, violating trademarks.)
Copyright: Jake Peterson/Google
Google isn’t the only tech company to launch a new image model this week. X recently launched a new beta version of Grok, the company’s AI chatbot, and it comes with an image generator created using very There are few limitations. Users (namely, Lifehacker’s Michelle Erhardt) have used Grok to generate everything from Taylor Swift in a MAGA hat to Pikachu holding an AK-47.
On the other hand, Imagen 3 has obvious guardrails. When I try to direct Google’s image generator to anything controversial, it stops itself and politely directs me to Imagen 3’s FAQ section to understand why my direction is inappropriate. The program also refuses to generate copyrighted content, but it can be tricked into producing it with the right directions. As I mentioned above, I was able to generate logos, and I was even able to get it to produce trademarked characters like Mario and Pikachu, even if I couldn’t get them to engage in a gunfight.
Copyright: Jake Peterson/Google
How to try Imagen 3
Any US user with a Google account can try out the new AI-powered image generator for free. To do so, Head to ImageFX in Google’s AI Test KitchenSign in with your Google Account, then get the claim.
