Cats in NYC

I woke up in the middle of the night after dreaming about cats being the people of New York City. So I got out my iPad, launched ChatGPT and asked it to instruct DALL-E to visualize: “A city street in nyc where humans have been replaced by cats, who walk upright, wear typical human clothes, are cops, mothers, business executives, messengers, television reporters. They drive cars, buses and cabs.” #

The first two images were imho lifeless, cheap — lazy. I narrowed the spec: “The street should be more busy, and dirtier like nyc streets, and the cats should have more expressive faces, some should be angry, flirty, happy, depressed, tired.”#

DALL-E’s rendering of CatNY as visualized by ChatGPT and myself. #

What came out was a good first try — looks a bit like 8th Ave looking north from 42nd St. And cats! Look at the image in full resolution, it’s got a lot of interesting detail. Maybe a continuing story.#

This is how ChatGPT described what I wanted to DALL-E. I guess it’s like SQL, one program writes scripts for the other program. #

• “Illustration of a busy and gritty New York City street scene where cats have replaced humans. The street is filled with trash, and the cats walk upright, wearing human clothes. Their faces are highly expressive, capturing emotions like happiness, anger, flirtation, depression, and tiredness. The roads are jam-packed with cars, buses, and taxis, all operated by these emotive cats. Among them, a cop cat is directing traffic, a mother cat is tending to her kitten in a stroller, and a television reporter cat is conducting an interview.”#

Just for fun I asked it to change the cats to dogs. #

The cats become dogs. #

Then I asked for more motive variety. “Some dogs are sad, depressed, flirty, horny, unloved, ugly, arrogant, satisfied. And they’re all hungry.”#

Dogs with varied emotions. (Full size.) #