Milan, Italy – A husband-and-wife team is using artificial intelligence to reimagine “Friends” characters — as babies! Luca and Anna Alivi recreated the characters Rachel, Ross, Chandler, Monica, Joey and Phoebe to look like toddlers from the American sitcom.
The couple started creating the images “for fun” while their one-year-old daughter Celeste was sleeping. However, their hobby quickly started on social networks. Now, everyone from politicians like Donald Trump and Boris Johnson to actors including Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt are creating realistic baby photos.
“It started as a game,” said Luca, a biotechnologist, in a statement to Southwest News. “It was something we did for fun. To try something different. The pictures are really real. “
“Luca has an amazing imagination,” adds Anna, who sells machine parts. “It’s the future. It’s improving very quickly.”
Luca first tried to create puppies and kittens as their favorite characters before doing the same with children.
“We have our own cats and we love animals, so we tried to make cats characters from sagas like Harry Potter,” Luca told SWNS.
The creative pair use software Midjourney to enter requests and commands to create images, referencing billions of images online.
“It’s not a time-consuming process. It’s a long room to think about what you want,” Anna said.
“You have to use the right words in the prompt. The order of the words is important. As the software evolves, you have to define the person and adjust the prompts. It’s evolving very quickly,” explains Luca.
The pair created statements for “friends” – instructions for the software – to tell the AI program to act like babies. Luca and Anna were surprised by the reaction of their followers – many loved the entertainment of their “friends”.
“It’s exciting to see the response,” says Anna.
Commenters online were impressed with the couple’s efforts. “They’re all so cute,” one person wrote, while another wrote, “They’re dead. Absolutely beautiful.”
The couple took their fans’ requests and used AI to guess the baby’s Disney villains, Harry Potter characters and singers. While Anna and Luca love the technology for their artwork, they understand the dangers of experimenting with AI.
“Sometimes it’s scary and it’s so obvious,” Anna says.
“It could be dangerous. “Some people use it for fake news,” says Luca.
The couple are still creating the designs and say their daughter is their biggest fan.
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Southwest News Service Writer Emma Dunn contributed to this report.
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