At our first ‘Share and Learn’ session on Wednesday, September 25, members had the opportunity to take a look at 2 new apps for generating images from text:

1. Chatbox AI: For iPads and iPhones

2. Google’s Gemini: This is Google’s advanced AI model web application that can handle text, images, audio, and video.

The apps all have free options and can be obtained through the App Store or Play Store, or on the web. Participants chose to either use their own phone, tablet or laptop, or borrow one of the club's devices (iPads, tablets, laptops and Chromebooks).

Susan Watt led us through a series of demos and activities to explore these apps. There was a 'buzz' in the room from our learning, teamwork, cheering, frustrations, problem solving and fun!

What we learned:

1) The app Chatbox AI was a bit of a challenge to get into - there are lots of screens to bypass which ask you to set up accounts, sign in etc. You do not have to do this; look for the tiny gray 'x's to close windows or say 'no' or 'cancel'. Once you are in, it is easy to create a few images and save them directly to Photos. However, be warned: your free options run out pretty quickly.

2) Many people found gemini.google.com more user friendly. It's accessible through any browser; you do have to sign in using your gmail account. Once in, there are many free options to create, save and download images. It was fun, and there was lots more to explore that we didn't have time for in this session! We didn't find any limits to the free options. 

Through a combination of instruction and small group exploration, most participants were able to successfully create an AI generated image. A few of these can be seen below!