Text-to-Pokémon lets you turn anyone into a Pokémon

A new AI image generator called Text-to-Pokémon allows you to enter any name or description and create the corresponding Pokémon. The performance of the model is not perfect, but it is still interesting: you can try entering the names of celebrities and politicians, or just general descriptions of Pokemon, reports The Verge.

The model is the work of machine learning researcher Justin Pinkney, who has created a number of tools and resources for visual artificial intelligence. Text-to-Pokémon is based on a much larger and more powerful AI image generator called Stable Diffusion.

Unlike DALL-E and Midjourney, Stable Diffusion is open source, allowing others to easily fiddle with its output. And that’s exactly what Pinkney did, fine-tuning the system using a database of pokémon to create this little tool.

People have used Text-to-Pokémon to create all sorts of mashups, including Goku, Sonic the Hedgehog, and even Jesus Christ. In his message on Twitter, Pinkney tells about how he created this tool.

A big advantage of releasing open-source AI models like Stable Diffusion is that people come up with interesting tools like Text-to-Pokémon. However, it is worth remembering that open source also has its drawbacks, and almost anyone can use Stable Diffusion to create violent and sexual images or misinformation.