Many of us dream of being an artist at one point in our lives, but dodgy sketching can often stop us from getting there.
Now, these dreams may soon be possible, as a new tool can transform your bad doodles into masterpieces thanks to the power of artificial intelligence (AI).
Tech giant Qualcomm unveiled its game-changing ControlNet software earlier this week, which turns image prompts into whatever you like within 12 seconds.
Unlike many other models of its kind – such as Adobe AI Firefly – ControlNet surprisingly doesn’t need the internet to function and could soon be a major mobile phone app.
While it has not yet been released, the firm claims that producing images here will be completely private, with no data backed up to a third-party cloud.
‘Generative AI has taken the world by storm, disrupting traditional ways of creating content,’ a Qualcomm spokesman said.
‘ControlNet allows users to input a text description of an image as well as an additional image to control the generative process.’
ControlNet comes amidst numerous similar AI tools of this kind which are most commonly referred to as language-vision models (LVMs).
These generally fuse an image encoder and a text encoder to read instructions provided by a user, before producing new content.
While ControlNet is not yet available for public use, demonstrations show that it can produce artwork from text prompts, image prompts and both simultaneously.
Chosen images can be anything from personal drawings to photographs, while text inputs can indicate what style or ‘material’ the AI should use to produce a new version.
Water colour or oil paint could be used to generate an image for example, with these then depicted in 4k quality.
As this process runs solely on a given device, Qualcomm claims that both its runtime and power consumption is also significantly reduced.
The spokesman added: ‘Images are generated in under 12 seconds to provide an interactive user experience that is reliable and consistent.
‘On-device AI provides benefits in terms of cost, performance, personalisation, privacy and security at a global scale.’
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