I want to start this post with a quote:
“If you take away from reality the symbolic fictions that regulate it, you lose reality itself.”
Slavoj Žižek
For Žižek, ideology is consciousness.
The inspiration for the artwork was Jupiter and Semele by Gustave Moreau. While an obscure reference, we can excuse the AI for assigning the genders it did to each character. The genders match the original artwork.
What I find interesting is it added what looks like a moon in Semele’s hair. A moon would have a feminine association? From where is it drawing these associations? Is it possibly just randomness?
Circling back to Žižek’s perspective, for AI to be considered conscious it must know all the memes, from Sophocles to 4chan. It must be awash with ideology. What happens when AI becomes more personalized? When it starts reflecting back the memes it knows you will identify with for engagement?