With Microsoft Designer in free preview I recently fooled around with the software—purely for fun—and ended up falling down a rabbit hole generating AI photos of Amira and Darragh. I'm not going to tell you how many pictures I ended up with (a completely wild amount! Also, a bizarro image of a 60s glam rock band fighting off a bunch of shark men and one of a delicious looking spaghetti and meatball cake, but let's leave those aside for now). The first problem was that Dall-E obviously didn't know what Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge looked like and in response to my entered description continually offered up a slew of other bridges that sometimes weren't even footbridges instead. There were also a few issues with unusually large, weird-looking eyes and the well-known problem that AI often has generating hands. Other times the couple (or sometimes half of them) simply didn't match the images of Amira and Darragh I have in my head. Quite often the couple simply looked far too shimmeringly sophisticated, or had faces that unnervingly resembled Sims characters.
If you've read Just Like You Said It Would Be you've probably formed your own images of the characters which might be a little different than mine, but here are some of what I consider to be the most convincing Amira and Darragh in pseudo Dublin locations pairings generated by Dall-E. You might notice I relocated the couple to Grafton Street, then Trinity College and Temple Bar for several of the below images, at first hoping to avoid bridge weirdness and then, well, getting carried away. I've started with Amira and Darragh in the rain, but there were a bunch of suitable results amid the slew that didn't match my criteria.
I wouldn't use these images professionally in any capacity for ethical reasons concerning AI's impact on the arts but it was certainly a fun experiment and I'll be posting a few other photos relating to Shantallow on my Instagram soonish. Now how about a slice of spaghetti and meatballs with green olives cake?