Unveiling the ChatGPT self-portrait

4 min readMar 16, 2023

Discover the unique ASCII art self-portrait created by ChatGPT and visualized by Midjourney

Orange cat with goggles looking like swim goggles. — Chat-GPT self-portrait, generated in Midjourney

When I think of self-portraits, I envision a stylized image of myself in a particular style that defines me as a person. What happens if you ask ChatGPT to generate a self-portrait? In this early version, it can’t, but I managed to circumvent this problem by asking it to create a self-portrait using ASCII art. Emojis are also a possibility. Finally, I copy pasted the ASCII code into Midjourney, and you can see the result above.

ChatGPT is an advanced language model developed by OpenAI, designed to engage in conversation, answer questions, and assist users with various tasks.

Genesis I

So, I asked ChatGPT (GPT4) to make a self-portrait in ASCII-art. The prompt was:

If you were to create an ASCII representation of yourself, 
what would it look like?

First, I got this back:

   ____ _    _ _______ ______
  / ____| |  | |__   __|  ____|
 | |    | |__| |  | |  | |__   
 | |    |  __  |  | |  |  __|  
 | |____| |  | |  | |  | |____ 
  \_____|_|  |_|  |_|  |______|

GPT-4 told me that it spells out the word “CHATGPT” using characters from the ASCII character set, and that this was representing its nature and identity as an AI language model.

Genesis II

So, I tried again with the following prompt:

But that is just a logo, could you be more creative and 
draw a self-portrait in ASCII?

And I got this:

    .-""""""""""-.
  .-""`         `""-.
 /_.._`-.     .-':  :`.
;`    `-:;   ;:  ;   ; :
: `"""`""|| ||"""""""" :
 ;| | | |; ;;;;;;;;;;;;
  |; | | |`.._________.-'
  |; | ; |  |    | | |`|
  |; | | |  |    | | | |
  |; | | |  |    | | | |
  |; | | |  |    | | | |
  |; | | |  |    | | | |
  |; | | |  |    | | | |
  ;| | | |  |    | | |; ;
  :| | | |  |    | | | :
   :; | ; ;  |    | ; ;  :
    ;| | | |; ;;;;;; ;| ;
     :| ; | |`-.___.-'; ;
      ;: | | |  | | | |; ;
       ;:| | |  | | | | ;
        :;| | |  | | | |:
         `:| | |  | | | ;
           ;:| | |; | | ;
            :;| | | | | :
             `;| | | |; ;
               ;:| | | ;
                :;| | |;
                 ;:| | ;
                  ;:| |;
                   ;:| ;
                    ;:;
                     ;;
                      ;

Once again I asked and it explained that GPT dont have a physical appearance or features that I can portray in a self-portrait. But it could create a representation of an AI in a more creative and abstract form. According to itself this creation represent “a computer with a thought bubble, indicating that it’s processing information and generating text”.

Evolution

However, when I input the ASCII art into Midjourney as a prompt, it unveiled something hidden exchanged between two AI-bots:

Midjourney ASCII-art prompt with four generated images representing: A cat with goggles, another cat with goggles, an inline helmet, and a dolphin in the sea. — Midjourney ASCII prompt

The results included a cat with goggles, another cat with goggles (similar to my own), an inline helmet, and a dolphin. Naturally, a choice had to be made, and I ultimately opted for the second cat.

Conclusion

This may be a whimsical example, but the capabilities of ChatGPT and Midjourney demonstrate how ChatGPT can “draw” in a sense, while Midjourney can potentially interpret these creations and provide a visual representation. As AI technology advances, we can expect to see increased synergies between models, making the possibilities endless.

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👉 Unleasing the Power of ChatGPT for designers:https://medium.com/design-bootcamp/unleashing-the-power-of-chatgpt-for-designers-1f2775ecd31c

Bonus content

In early January 2023, I requested a self-portrait from ChatGPT (GPT-3) before the attempt mentioned above, and I received this rocket/house in return:

         .-^-.
        /_/_\_\
        ' ' | `
       /_\|_|/_\
     .--/_|_|_\--.
     |   | | |   |
     |___| | |___|
     |___|_|_|___|
     |___|_|_|___|
    .'"""""""""""'. 
   /,\\ \\|// //\\,\
  | \\\\ ;   ; // |
  | ||/  :  \|` ||
  .'/\_/|\___/ \,'.
  `"`   `~^~^~^~^~`

In Midjourney, this produced intriguing images, which might even be more captivating than those generated by the latest GPT-4 version: