The Future of Online Image Generation

Introducing E-PICS, my answer to AI.

A lot of ink has been spilled throughout the last few years on the topic of AI-generated images, and still no one really knows what these machines mean for the future of pictures. Photographers worry about the stability of their livelihoods, artists worry about their work being unfairly fed to ever-hungry AI training algorithms, and the general public has a whole new reason to abandon trust in images as a whole. It is all very confusing and overwhelming, but I am happy to say I might have a solution.

Today I am launching my own image-generating program called E-PICS. E-PICS¹ is an online, robust system for turning your text prompts into amazingly lifelike images. Let me tell you some of the advantages of this new program compared to existing AI image generators on the market:

• E-PICS runs on a natural neural network (NNN) that has been in development for over two decades.

• The training of this neural net has consisted of years of aimless Instagram scrolling, nodding off through countless hours of art history class, morning perusings of a precariously over-stacked shelf of photobooks, and daily wanderings around its home. 

• Instead of a warehouse of computers using a city’s worth of electricity, this system runs on coffee, dairy-free breakfast bars, and Trader Joe’s olive oil popcorn.

• E-PICS guarantees near-lifelike results, as if the image was taken with a real camera in front of a real subject.

• Unlike other platforms, E-PICS can handle and even encourages the use of complex and emotional prompts to produce images (ex. “the feeling of the last day of a beach vacation and you know you’ll miss the beach but you do kinda want to go home and take a shower in your own shower”).

• Like all AI platforms, E-PICS has its biases. But instead of hands with seven fingers or wormy blobs of garbled faces, E-PICS may present an overabundance of mailboxes, oddly shaped trees, the chickens at Taylor’s garden, neighborhood cats, and subjects placed in the center of the frame. 

• The most standout feature of E-PICS is the output of high-resolution 4x6 laser prints sent through the United States Postal Service’s First Class Mail. The original prompt is included with each image for reference.

If the above facts and figures haven’t yet convinced you of the power of E-PICS, please enjoy these samples:

I know at this point you must be asking yourself, “How much a is a subscription???” Well, bucking all the trends, E-PICS is subscription-free! Our pricing system is based strictly on usage: $2 for one prompt, $5 for three prompts, or $10 for seven prompts. All prompts can be submitted here for a limited time. Please see disclaimers below.² No other image generator out there works like E-PICS. Try it today and see for yourself the future of imaging technology.

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In a completely unrelated update, I made a huge stack of index card prints for Philly Print Consortium’s printPHILLY! event back in April. I pulled from my whole history of taking pictures, making hundreds of prints of all the different kinds of things I’ve pointed my camera at. I sold some prints at the fair, but the stack of remaining index cards has been sitting on my desk for the last few months untouched. I really do want them to find homes where they might be hung up, pinned to fridges, used as bookmarks, stuffed in folders and found years later, given to friends as sweet gestures or with a funny message, or whatever people do with physical prints now. I’ve been trying to think of a way to get these prints out into the world, to share them in a way that attempts to involve the viewer. I’m sure omething will come to me soon.

1. E-PICS: Evan’s Prints on Index Cards for Sale

2. DISCLAIMER: E-PICS does not guarantee accurate, meaningful, or representational responses to any prompt written in any language. E-PICS holds the sole right to deem each response satisfactory. Results may vary. Please allow one to eighteen weeks for shipping. Your E-PICS prompt can and will be shared to promote the sale of more E-PICS, unless you ask me not to. Images produced through E-PICS are not fungible tokens, but I guess you can trade them if you want, that actually sounds pretty cool.