We've found it: the most terrifying AI image prompt ever

Women have been laughing alone with salad since time began – or at least stock photography can make it feel that way. There are countless photos out there depicting a lone female sharing a cracking joke with some lettuce leaves – but if you thought these looked a little manic, wait until you see AI's interpretation of the meme.

A Twitter user has shared a series of AI images created via the text-to-image prompt 'Woman laughing with salad', and it's literally a brand new genre of horror. (Like feeling disturbed? Check out the weirdest images created using DALL-E 2.)

Like those freaky AI house party images, these are plagued by micro and macro oddities. One of the scariest things here is the psychotic (and vaguely cannibalistic) laughs, which take salad enjoyment to extremes beyond even the most euphoric Getty Images examples. And then there's the dungeony backdrops, which suggest these images are part of the Saw Cinematic Universe.

But look a little closer, and things get even freakier – mainly because of the sheer amount of teeth we're looking at here. Many of these women are so happy about their salads that they've grown, in some cases, an entire extra row of gnashers.

The images have been viewed over 2M times on Twitter, and users are a little, er, alarmed. "There’s the uncanny valley and then there’s the uncanny chasm of horror," one user comments, while another adds, "Why are AI images of human beings so disturbing? That is a real question."

The controversy around AI images extends beyond their frequent weirdness, though, with questions over ethics and copyright closely following the tech. But in some potentially good news, a recently revealed tool might be able to help protect artists' work from AI image generators.

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• Adobe has a message for creatives worried about the rise of AI art