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OpenAI yesterday September 21, 2023 unveiled an upgraded version of its text-to-image tool, DALL-E, that uses ChatGPT — OpenAI’s viral AI chatbot — to take some of the pain out of prompting.

Most cutting-edge, AI-powered image generation tools today take prompts — descriptions of images — and turn them into artwork in an array of styles, ranging from the photorealistic to fantastical. But crafting the right prompt can be a challenge, so much so that “prompt engineering” is becoming a bona fide profession.

OpenAI’s new tool, DALL-E 3, uses ChatGPT to help fill in prompts. Via ChatGPT, subscribers to OpenAI’s premium ChatGPT plans, ChatGPT Plus and ChatGPT Enterprise, can type in a request for an image and hone it through conversations with the chatbot — receiving the results directly within the chat app.

ChatGPT will take a prompt as short as a few words and make it more descriptive, providing more guidance to the DALL-E 3 model.

ChatGPT integration isn’t the only thing that’s new with DALL-E 3. DALL-E 3 also generates higher-quality images that more accurately reflect prompts, OpenAI says — especially when dealing with longer prompts. And it better handles content that’s historically tripped up image-generating models, like text and human hands.

Beyond this, DALL-E 3 has new mechanisms to reduce algorithmic bias and improve safety — or so OpenAI says. For example, DALL-E 3 will reject requests that ask for an image in the style of living artists or portray public figures. And artists can now opt out of having certain — or all of — their artwork used to train future generations of OpenAI text-to-image models. (OpenAI, along with some of its rivals, is facing a lawsuit for allegedly using artists’ copyrighted work to train its generative AI image models.)

The launch of DALL-E 3 comes as the generative AI race heats up, particularly in the image-synthesizing domain. Competitors like Midjourney and Stability AI continue to refine their image-generating models, putting the pressure on OpenAI to stay apace.

OpenAI plans to roll out DALL-E 3 to premium ChatGPT users in October, followed by research labs and its API customers. The company didn’t say when — or whether — it plans to release a free web tool, as it did with DALL-E 2 and the original DALL-E model.