In this Feb. 27, 2013, file photo illustration, hands type on a computer keyboard in Los Angeles.

Have you have ever wondered what a Demogorgon from “Stranger Things” would look like playing basketball?

But if you wanted to, all you would have to do is type what you want to see into an artificial intelligence image generator, give it a few minutes and soon you’ll have your own AI-generated, basketball-playing Demogorgon.

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DALL-E mini, recently renamed to Craiyon, is an AI model, or a neural network, that generates images based on text prompts, according to the DALL-E mini model card. From a Darth Vader portrait by Picasso to a Roomba in the Marianas Trench, the possibilities of AI-generated images are endless.

The AI tool, which became popular for its surreal and totally unique images, has been dubbed by Wired as the internet’s favorite “meme machine.”

DALL-E mini is free and easy to use. All you have to do is go to Craiyon.com and type a prompt into the “What do you want to see?” box.

After a few minutes, or sometimes seconds, it will give you nine images in an attempt to match the prompt, according to Business Insider.

For better images, Craiyon has some tips: “It’s always a good idea to be specific. Here are a few keywords that can be interesting to experiment with: ‘illustration’, ‘photorealistic’, ‘high definition.’”

If you want to get a good idea of how others are using the DALL-E mini, look no further than social media sites like Reddit or Twitter.

Accounts like Weird Dall-E Mini Generations collect some of the strangest memes people have created.

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DALL-E mini is more than just a meme machine — it’s also a big step forward in machine learning.

DALL-E mini is based on an AI model that generates images by “drawing on statistical patterns it gleaned from analyzing about 30 million labeled images to extract connections between words and pixels,” according to Wired. 

Learning from those associations between images and descriptions, the artificial intelligence generates a completely new image. This is known as machine learning.

The technology behind DALL-E is capable of so much more than meme-making. Machine learning can impact everything from science and medicine to art and entertainment.

Machine learning has already helped solve some of science’s biggest questions, such as the “the protein-folding problem” in molecular biology, and has the capacity to make other “monumental” advances in science, according to Vox.

It can also help with predicting weather, saving forests, and even identifying and treating hospital patients. In fact, artificial intelligence and machine learning are “on track to become a mainstream technology, on a par with electricity or computing,” according to The Economist.

So the next time you see a funny AI-generated image, think of it as a big technological step forward.

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