I used to love using image generation whenever I had a weird idea or wanted to see something, but after this place educated me on where the training data comes from and what those datacenters burn through, I stopped opening the app and writing prompts. Now I just make the image in my own head.

Recently I found out I have the ability to use a form of Image Gen internally for free. I’d generated so many AI images that I can almost entirely predict what the model would’ve spat out anyway.

For example, I was walking past a coffee shop and saw this orange cat sitting in the window with a tiny croissant next to it. Old me would’ve opened the app and asked it to make “a cinematic photo of a sleepy orange cat guarding a croissant in a cozy Parisian café,” but then I realized it wasn’t worth the water and just generated it in my head.

It gave me something like: warm morning light, shallow depth of field, tiny paws, slightly surreal but still realistic. No glossy plastic skin, no sixth toe, and it didn’t scrape a single artist to do it. Then I imagined the cat wearing a little beret because obviously the model would’ve done that.

I just thought that was a pretty cool discovery I’ve made. Interested to see if anyone else has this ability.