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See What Happens When AI Turns 'Simpsons' Characters Into Real People

D'oh! Mild-mannered Homer suddenly looks like the Hulk of Springfield.

Leslie Katz Former Culture Editor
Leslie Katz led a team that explored the intersection of tech and culture, plus all manner of awe-inspiring science, from space to AI and archaeology. When she's not smithing words, she's probably playing online word games, tending to her garden or referring to herself in the third person.
Credentials
  • Third place film critic, 2021 LA Press Club National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards
Leslie Katz

Milan Jaram describes himself as an artist who "horrifies your cozy childhood memories with dark twists on your favorite shows, cartoons and pop culture." With his AI-fication of Simpsons characters, Jaram has succeeded handily. 

homer

AI Homer is not looking happy. 

Milan Jaram

A muscle-bound, rage-filled Homer looks ready to Hulk-smash his way through Springfield; Marge has morphed into the bride of Frankenstein; and Krusty the Clown's menacing face will be the nightmare of children and clown PR teams everywhere. 

Mischievous Bart and Millhouse, meanwhile, now have sad, hollow eyes drained of any youthful whimsy, and good-natured Ned Flanders looks totally defeated. 

On his darkside.ai TikTok account, Jaram has reimagined the Simpsons characters in a three-part series that's so far gotten close to 10 million views. A separate video on darkside.ai shows the Simpsons as Calvin Klein models. (That version of Marge could easily rule a catwalk.)

AI art is increasingly capturing the imagination of the internet thanks to tools like Dall-E Mini, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, which let you input a short phrase describing an image, then manifest that image onto your screen, often in mind-bending and disturbing ways. 

For other flights of frightful AI fancy, Jaram has asked algorithms to show Disney princesses in Tim Burton's style, turn SpongeBob characters into real people  and make zombies out of celebrities