Hands-on with ChatGPT's powerful new image engine
In the day that I have had access, I gave the new model a wide range of tasks.
- A friend asked me to make a memorial image of her recently deceased cat along with two favorite toys. It crafted an image that looked like a highly personalized sympathy card.
- It elegantly took two photos from my wedding and made it appear as if they were in an old-style photo album with photo corners.
- My colleagues suggested a poster for a fictional event. I decided to create a Mike Allen look-alike contest in Washington Square Park this Sunday. (Of course, it's only fictional if no one shows up.)
It also made a handy infographic making "the case against candy corn" which I used unsuccessfully to convince two colleagues that the treat, which is neither candy nor corn, is also not good.
The full pages it designs are scary good. I'd go so far as to say this is definitely a shot across the bow for design work.
If you're used to absurd lettering and poor design decisions, the output included in the story suggests otherwise.
https://www.axios.com/2026/04/22/chatgpt-hands-on-powerful-image-engine
Chronographs
in reply to Powderhorn • • •Steve
in reply to Chronographs • • •Need to try again with double blind AB testing.
Ace
in reply to Steve • • •Like this one? :) nytimes.com/interactive/2026/0…
Post your score! It's a little different as it doesn't ask you to identify the AI text, it asks you to choose the one that "reads better". For at least two of them, I correctly identified which was AI and subjectively preferred it over the human-written text. But I correctly identified 3/5 as AI text. It's crazy that they're mostly 50/50, and one is even apparently 35% preferred the human text. I wish there were more examples. On their similar image quizzes, there are 10+ images to classify.
Who’s a Better Writer: A.I. or Humans? Take Our Quiz.
Kevin Roose (The New York Times)Steve
in reply to Ace • • •That's asking which one someone likes more, not which they think is AI. It's a subtle but important distinction. For me it was a tossup. I picked the AI 3 to 2.
In reality all the passages felt like over-written attempts to say something simple, as poetical as possible. I've never really liked that style of writing. I try to be much more direct.
But generally, yah. That's what I mean. You need that kind of test to know if you can tell something is AI or not.
Ace
in reply to Steve • • •yeah, I edited the comment saying something similar, but maybe the edit didn't federate to your server in time to be seen.
I'd rather they just ask me to identify which is which, because I don't really know which I prefer really as I agree in not liking that prosey poetic sort of style - overwritten as you put it. and I identified 3/5 AI texts but sometimes preferred them to the human text. So they're not great choices of examples really.
Powderhorn
in reply to Chronographs • • •Chronographs
in reply to Powderhorn • • •Powderhorn
in reply to Chronographs • • •Chronographs
in reply to Powderhorn • • •Steve
in reply to Chronographs • • •Powderhorn
in reply to Chronographs • • •Chronographs
in reply to Powderhorn • • •Powderhorn
in reply to Chronographs • • •Pommes_für_dein_Balg
in reply to Powderhorn • • •People who are not writers think AI can replace writers.
People who are not translators think AI can replace translators.
People who are not developers think AI can replace devs.
You think AI is "a shot across the bow for design work" since you are not a designer.
Everyone thinks AI can do other people's jobs because they're not experts in those areas.
I wonder what your profession is, and whether you think AI could replace you and deliver the same quality of work.
like this
yessikg likes this.
Powderhorn
in reply to Pommes_für_dein_Balg • • •I spent two decades as a newspaper writer, editor and designer and have won national awards for all three. Try again.
Also, it doesn't matter if it's 100% as good as what I can do. Corporate will readily settle for 80% for a fraction of the price and time.
And the public was wowed by seven-fingered hands when image generation first came out. Their threshold is even lower.