Even controversial leaders like Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin were once innocent babies – and artificial intelligence has created images of them before becoming war-mongering dictators.
The young rulers were created by Midjourney, an AI-powered imaging software that churns out photos based on simple text prompts.
The results shows each baby image sporting a suit and donning the tyrants’ iconic hairstyles.
These images follow one of baby Elon Musk that made waves on the internet this month, showing the billionaire as a toddler with a white button-up shirt, brown overalls and signature haircut.
AI-generated images have taken over the internet in recent months, some sparking joy and others causing terror.
In March, a photo of Pope Francis donning a huge white puffer jacket immediately fooled the internet.
The image was outrageous enough to prompt Chrissy Teigen, 37, to address her 12.9 million Twitter followers.
The model and TV personality wrote: ‘I thought the pope’s puffer jacket was real and didn’t give it a second thought. No way am I surviving the future of technology.’
And in the same month, a gallery of snaps showing shocking scenes of Donald Trump being tackled to the ground by police officers.
This was around the same time the former president was due to be indicted over allegations he paid hush money to a porn star.
However, the public knew something was off with the images.
While these were for entertainment, other AI-generated images, like one claiming an explosion occurred at the Pentagon last month, showed how the tech can have real world impact. That fake image sent stock markets crashing.
China’s Xi Jinping was also reimagined as a baby by Midjourney.He is a politician who has served as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and chairman of the Central Military Commission since 2012.
In 2018, Xi engineered a constitutional reform that eliminated the previous two-term limit on the Presidency, allowing him to stay in power without needing an election.
‘People in China cannot practice the religion or belief of their choice. They cannot express their opinions openly or form or join groups of their choosing without fear of harassment, arrest, or retribution.
‘Members of minority groups are subject to arbitrary mass detention, Orwellian-style surveillance, political indoctrination, torture, forced abortions and sterilization, and state-sponsored forced labor,’ according to the US Department of State.
Midjourney, created by scientists in Silicon Valley was asked to create what world leaders would look like as babies after seeing a viral post on Instagram showing these same men reimagined by AI.
Kim, Putin and Bashar al-Assad, who served as the 19th president of Syria since 2000, have been accused of human rights violations.
