Using technology to either age-up or de-age usually results in some kind of uncanny valley nightmare that would not pass the Turing Test. However, it’s becoming a more common feature of TV and movies – with young RDJ in Marvel‘s Civil War and Peter Cushing in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story being two high-profile examples from 2016 which helped kick-start the trend into the mainstream.
But what happens when the thing you’re aging-up or down is already a CGI creation or puppet and not human at all? Well the results can be even worse – resulting in some kind of Eldritch horror. The recent Dall-E trend has produced some funny, and frequently terrifying creations. Dall-E is an open-source artificial intelligence that transforms text descriptions into images, and since the launch of 2.0 in April 2022, has exploded in popularity.
While Dall-E can produce realistic and beautiful images, internet users have of course focused on trying to get it to make the most messed-up things you can imagine. Now, someone has asked for “Adult Grogu in Mandalorian armour” and posted it in The Mandalorian Reddit, where it is provoking strong reactions.
While baby Grogu looks soft and cuddly and even has a light smattering of downy fur, the adult Grogu that Dall-E has conjured looks hard and plastic. He looks like a 1980s action figure, with a crudely-rendered face and black stripes for some reason. He is also a much darker green than baby Grogu. He is also the height of an adult man, which adds to the fact that he looks all wrong.
Some reactions from Reddit users include; “ridiculously cursed,” “this should be illegal,” “didn’t want to sleep tonight anyway,” and “thanks I hate it.” The funny thing is that Dall-E didn’t just produce something that looks like Yoda, which maybe tells you something about how the AI works.
If you’re excited for season 3 of The Mandalorian, we’ve got you covered.