We built The Impressionist Weather Report to explore the creative potential of real-time, data-driven creativity powered by AI. What happens when we connect real-world information to AI's rapidly-expanding creative skills? Can AI's generative speed and scale capabilities help us understand the world around us in new ways?

 

The Impressionist Weather Report uses real-time weather data to make AI-generated art in the style of impressionist oil paintings. Location, date, time and weather data are compiled into a prompt and sent to OpenAI's Dall-E image generator, delivering real-time depictions of any location on the planet. 

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Our typical relationship with weather information is based on utility: we use weather information to help make choices about what we do and how we do it. But what if we could use weather data to tell a different story—to paint pictures of the world in a way that wouldn't have been possible in the past? Looking at weather this way transforms utilitarian information into something more like human communication—using real-world data like "rainy," "clear," or "wintry mix" as inspiration for works of art. Assembling an army of human impressionist painters to paint any location on Earth in an instant would be impossible, but AI's text-to-image ability can help us do this for the first time.

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That AI is becoming increasingly competent as a creative tool is clear at this point. As important as it is to understand new advances in AI, it's even more important for people to use the unique capabilities of new AI tools to connect with each other. As these tools evolve, the question we should be asking ourselves is: how can AI tools help me bring my ideas to life?

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Get in touch with Bob Bjarke with questions and comments.