Thirty AI-generated imaginings of what banks would possibly seem like

In these circumstances it’s finest to be upfront. It is a silly put up. Hold studying provided that you’re effective with that.

What occurred was that on Friday afternoon, whereas half-listening to an earnings name, we started feeding financial institution names at random into an AI image generator. Nothing newsworthy got here out of the decision so relatively than waste the hour fully, we’re exhibiting you the pictures as an alternative.

All photos beneath have been made by Midjourney. Every immediate was a financial institution’s title and nothing extra. There have been no cues given for type or context, no rerolls, no variations and no edits. The output could be considered a form of Jungian word-association check for the way the algorithm thinks about international finance. Perhaps it’ll reveal one thing helpful for the upcoming magnificence parade of potential bookrunners to an AI bubble IPO rush, or possibly it’s just a few fairly photos. You determine.

The most typical end result when feeding a financial institution title into Midjourney is darkish structure. The examples beneath are Deutsche Financial institution and BNP Paribas:

Citi’s darkish structure entails extra of a suburban Unabomber’s cabin temper:

Whereas Santander, Financial institution of America and Société Générale all keep native and forged again to some imaginary previous:

Structure turns surreal with Commerzbank and China CITIC Financial institution:

When there’s no “financial institution” within the title, the algo typically falls again on advertising and marketing composites and alien company logos. Presenting alongside these strains are Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and Customary Chartered:

One other recurring theme is animals. There’s an on-brand sturdy horse for Lloyds and, for Wells Fargo, a cowboy horse in an uncommon hat:

The selection of animal generally strays fairly far off model. Goldman Sachs has a fish:

UBS has some form of ox, bull, or probably shaved yak:

Barclays has a livid parrot:

And Swedbank has a disturbing pig:

The kid above additionally turns up for HSBC, this time loitering in a council property’s open-air launderette:

If a financial institution’s title is simply too obscure to work as a picture immediate the machine has a fever dream. That’s what occurred with ING:

Prompts can be overly particular in unhelpful methods, corresponding to with BONY Mellon:

After just a few dozen of those it turned troublesome to keep away from studying meanings into every imaginative and prescient. What does it recommend, for example, that Credit score Suisse is an vintage loot field?

Or that Nordea is a pack of taking part in playing cards half-buried in barren flatlands?

Or that Peel Hunt is a travelling medication man’s miracle elixir?

Airbrushed steampunk hyper-realism is Midjourney’s favoured type, however not uniformly. Asking it to think about Numis, for instance, delivered a Pixar cartoon a couple of boy and his outsized bread bin: