DALL-E
OpenAI's text-to-image generation model that creates original images from text descriptions, named after Salvador Dali and WALL-E.
Evolution
DALL-E (2021): Original model using discrete VAE + transformer. DALL-E 2 (2022): Used CLIP + diffusion for higher quality. DALL-E 3 (2023): Dramatically improved text rendering and prompt following, integrated into ChatGPT.
Impact
DALL-E demonstrated that AI could be genuinely creative, sparking the AI art movement and raising questions about copyright, artist compensation, and the nature of creativity.