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AI-Generated 'Subliminal Messages' Are Going Viral 21

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Every week, the social media hype-train seems to find new ways to sensationalize generative AI tools. Most recently, a new technique that allows users to produce optical illusions went viral, with some describing the results as AI-generated images with "subliminal" messages. The technique, called ControlNet, essentially lets users have more control over the generated image by specifying additional inputs -- in this case, letting you create images or words within other images. Some users characterized this as a form of "hidden message" that could be used to implant suggestions in the form of subtle visual cues, like a McDonald's "M" logo appearing in the outlines of a movie poster.

ControlNet uses the AI image-generating tool Stable Diffusion, and one of its initial uses was generating fancy QR codes using the code as an input image. That idea was then taken further, with some users developing a workflow that lets them specify any image or text as a black-and-white mask that implants itself into the generated image -- kind of like an automated, generative version of the masking tool in Photoshop.
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AI-Generated 'Subliminal Messages' Are Going Viral

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  • The ones who find satan in everything and think it is some grand illuminati plot will never run out of examples now! Heil Hydra!
    • The ones who find satan in everything and think it is some grand illuminati plot will never run out of examples now! Heil Hydra!

      Just remember, whte evangelical men can tell you everything you want to know about gay sex.

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Evangelical? At that point they disqualify themselves for further communication. Failed human beings.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Not really. I have lost track of how many groups of deranged idiots are around that believe one demented thing or another. Should I ever find out I was sent here to take over to fix things (hopefully not), I will need a rather large staff to keep track of all these morons.

  • So this was a big thing years ago about hidden items in print pictures (ads alot) Two books on this (that seem to be still in print on Amazon at least). The Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard (originally written in 1957 or so) Subliminal Seduction by Wilson Bryan Key (original written in 1974)
    • Anything about why Walmart's logo looks like a sphincter? and how could they know they were going to become China's ass hole?

  • by byronivs ( 1626319 ) on Wednesday September 27, 2023 @05:32PM (#63882029) Journal

    Pictures of pictures. It's neat
      I WANT QUATERPOUNDER(TM)
      and I'd like to see more this "AI" should be pretty good at it. It's not really subliminal, not even hidden
    MUST LOGIN TO X
      really.

  • For some of them, especially the cats, I can see the message a bit easier if I scroll the image up and down and have my eyes slightly out of focus. Otherwise my eyes seem to notice the cats and miss the S and the E.

    If you look closely enough, you can even the message between the letters of my post that says "mod dfm3 to +5"
    • In my case, I might see the "message", but think nothing of it. I saw the cat one a few days ago and thought it was cute. It certainly didn't give me a "message" to do anything or think about.

      I guess if you're gullible or dimwitted enough these might have an effect, but for the rest of us, we go on with our lives.

      Then again, these aren't real subliminal messages [youtube.com].

    • if you see those images pretty small, ie medium-sized thumbnails,
      then you can read anything straight away....

      just do an image search "subliminal message AI" say on your Desktop.

      then in every relevant image result, the thumbnail, the message scream over anything else

      sometimes you can't even make out what the individual letters are composed of

  • You will find a special subliminal message. It comes with a free spritz of fragrance.
  • by Turkinolith ( 7180598 ) on Wednesday September 27, 2023 @06:32PM (#63882115)
    This is a bit simplistic as to what controlnet allows someone to do, basically you can use it to specify many parameters in your resulting image. (also surprising it's making the news now, it's been around for months)
    • What's relatively new is the use of the QR Code ControlNet to do things other than make QR Codes: namely, control the resulting image in subtle ways that were previously hard to achieve without QR Code.

  • How many times am I going to fall for the old "Squint to see gay sex" trick?

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