Recently, I’ve been recollecting acts of random kindness that have been bestowed upon me. Each of these stories has a travel memory attached to it, a holiday trip with family to Australia, a business trip to Japan. I also wrote about the power of Sanskrit, an ancient language of India, about how a single word can unlock an entire universe of imagination.

What if there was an artist who could sit by me and draw a picture of my memory or of my translation? How would the memory of a little girl cartwheeling against the backdrop of a lighthouse, ocean, blue sky look like? How would they paint a run in the foothills of Mt Fuji? Or translate a poet’s vision of a goddess playing a Veena?

I have been recently reading and hearing about AI image generators. Particularly, one such software called the DALL.E 2 has been receiving rave reviews. I decided to take it for a spin. The idea is simple, you enter a descriptive text and the AI software would generate a completely new image based on your text prompt. It’s as simple as that. Just like telling an artist about your vision and in less than 30 seconds, you would have a completely original piece of art that never existed before! Magic! The last time I was struck by technology in a similar way was when I wore the Google Glass, the augmented reality glasses and before that when I saw Google Earth. I knew that I was looking at something special.

Here are some examples of how DALL.E 2 interpreted my imagination. Quite frankly, it surpassed my wildest imagination.

Exhibit #1. 1. oil painting of a laughing little girl dressed in yellow and pink delighted at being given a surprise birthday gift at the airport.

Exhibit #2. Digital art of young girl dressed in yellow and pink cartwheeling in front of a white lighthouse that is on the top of a hill overlooking a blue ocean and a cloud filled sky dotted with hundreds of hot-air balloons.

Just for reference, I’m also adding a real life picture. I was blown away by how much DALL.E was able to capture the essence of my memory.

Exhibit #3. Oil painting of Her cheeks, illumined by the moonlight lustre of the string of pearls adorning Her beautiful forehead with curly locks attracted the humming bees to hover over the fragrant musk anointed surface making the music of Her Veena even stronger.

This one is a stunner! Nowhere did I mention the word goddess, or any reference to Hindu mythology, except maybe for the word Veena, which is a stringed instrument used by Indian classical musicians. This art would have made Kalidasa himself proud! The above translation is of a single Sanskrit word from his famous hymn Shyamala Dandakam.

Exhibit #4. A man running in a red pair of New Balance sneakers against a backdrop of a brilliant sun rising over Mount Fuji, expressive oil painting.

This was purely my imagination. I never ran in the foothills of Mt Fuji. But my memory related to me going to Japan and how kind it’s people were to me when I fell sick. Long story, short, it was about me forgetting my red sneakers behind in Tokyo and the hotel shipped them to Singapore at no cost! Their kindness invoked a blazing imagination of me running against a rising sun over the Mt Fuji and lo and behold, the magic of AI immortalized that vision.

As a writer, I realize how powerful this tool is. I could create an entire pictorial essay of every word that I write from now on. A single picture could then unlock a thousand words that never would have existed. Imagine your own photo albums or oil painting or any genre or style of art you want to imagine your world in! Spinning new universes unlimited!

Obviously, there is an area of responsible and ethical operation that rises with such powerful tools, which if not regulated will unleash a powerful monster, but that’s a topic for another day. For now, just go and create your own universe, all with typing a few words into DALL.E 2!