AI is a buzzy topic these days, with the emergence of programmes that can generate very convincing text and images aggregated from information and millions of images found online. One such programme is San Francisco-founded Midjourney, which is capable of churning out photos of people that are not real but nonetheless very realistic.

Last month, a photo of Pope Francis went very viral on social media for looking spiffy in a puffy white Balenciaga coat. The only catch? The Pope wasn’t actually wearing that coat. The image was created by Pablo Xavier, a construction worker from Chicago.

Annual coriander-eating competition in Singapore 

On Apr 20, Singaporean netizen Cygig posted on Midjourney’s Facebook page an AI image series he created. The series depicted a “coriander eating competition in Singapore”, with what appeared to be Singaporeans scarfing down huge amounts of the polarising herb from platters set in front of them.

According to Cygig, who described himself as a freelance graphic designer on his website, the images were generated using Midjourney and upscaled — a process that improves an image’s quality — with an open source software called Upscayl.

How Midjourney works is that the AI-powered tool acts on a user’s text prompt (like ‘coriander-eating competition in Singapore’) and uses an algorithm to mine image data from the internet that go into creating new images.

An earlier criticism of AI-generated images is that the programmes can’t seem to quite get human fingers right, though that is not the case with Cygig’s images. The Singaporeans, who are even multiracial in the photos, look like the average crowd we see in a heartland mall, except for the uncannily smooth, Meitu-esque skin that they sport.

The only giveaway is that although it’s supposedly based in ‘Singapore’, the photos’ background appear to look more like, erm, Penang or a sleepy European town. But if you have never heard of AI images, you may mistake this for a real competition.

Take a look for yourself below (all photos by Cygig):