AI Image Generators Can’t Make a Simple White Background
![AI white backdrop](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/04/AI-Cant-Make-White-Backdrop-800x420.jpg)
Artificial intelligence has amazed and terrified in equal measure but there’s one seemingly simple task that it can’t do: make a white background.
Despite being able to generate complex images, a request for a “simple white background” dumbfounds the leading AI image generators which find it impossible to follow.
![White backdrop on DALL-E](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/04/DALL·E-2024-04-03-08.50.26-A-plain-white-background-in-a-16_9-aspect-ratio-800x457.jpg)
![Midjourney White Background](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/04/petapixel_Make_a_plain_white_background_1fe04a53-3053-4fde-abe4-8b6041f13d2d-800x421.jpg)
Photographers and creatives who work with image editing software will often require an image that is a plain, singular color; often white. This blindspot in AI software was first flagged by research colleague and data scientist Cody Nash who made multiple attempts at AI-generating a plain white image but to no avail.
![#FFFFFF pixel image Midjourney](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/04/petapixel_An_image_of_pure_FFFFFF_pixels_54bce523-9ba3-4eb4-862b-6b07ded310d5-800x421.jpg)
“The goal was to see if AI could create a white painting. Not just a pure white image, but something that is the result of some inspiration, idea, or concept,” Nash tells BleepingComputer.
Nash tested out other colors too, asking for a “completely black background”, but he again has issues with the text-to-image models which added abstract shapes and textures into the image.
![DALL-E white background](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/04/DALL·E-2024-04-03-09.00.15-A-completely-white-background-with-every-pixel-being-FFFFFF-in-a-16_9-aspect-ratio-800x457.jpg)
People’s understanding of what AI can and can’t do is constantly evolving but then so is the technology itself which is persistently adding more parameters and more abilities. A recent PetaPixel experiment saw iconic photographs easily recreated with AI.
“Good artists borrow, great artists steal,” adds Nash. “With AI, it is robbery. It is a good thing AI is getting creative early on, so when they are given orders to destroy, there’s a chance they’ll say no. It is not the art I was looking for, but art was found anyway.”