So now there's an AI image generator for your pets

Ah, AI image generation. So much to answer for. In just 12 months, it's gone from creating creepy mashups that could cause nightmares to almost photorealistic perfection. And that means it's now safe for your pets. 

Yes, that's right. In exciting news for domestic animals everywhere, Picsart, one of the main platforms responsible for all those AI avatars we suddenly started seeing as social media profile pics, has expanded its tool to cater for cats, dogs are more (struggling to keep up? See our piece on how to use DALL-E 2 for the basics of AI image generation).

According to the Picsart, AI Avatar Pets allows you to "create unique portraits of your most loyal friend." It works in a similar way to the existing tool for human selfies. You need to upload between ten and twenty pictures of your subject to serve as the model, and then you select a 'style'.

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"Send Fido to the moon with the astronaut style," the company suggests. or turn Rover into royalty with the royal style." It says new styles will be introduced regularly, so you'll never run out of interesting scenarios in which to stage your domestic animal.

Picsart is firmly on the illustrative side of AI image generation for now, with most styles designed to look more like they're drawn or painted than photorealistic images, but the rate at which it's expanding is another example of just how fast AI image generation has progressed in just a year.

The Picsart app is available for iOS and Android. The cost starts at $3.99 for 50 avatars (five variations of 10 styles).

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