I don't dress my cat in costumes because, without even trying, I know she would hate that.

But now I can use text-to-image generators like DALL-E2 to imagine what she would look like in costumes. After all, even if it never saw my cat in a robot costume in its online training, it's seen cats, it's seen robots, and it's seen costumes, so it can try to put them together.

A cat lounging in a costume with a black t-shirt with a yellow square on it, a box-shaped fabric middle, and striped leggings. The cat is wearing a hat topped with a single small ball on a stick like a hilarious tiny antenna.
Prompt: "studio photo of a relaxed tortoiseshell cat wearing a robot costume"

Everyone knows that squares = robots so this costume makes perfect sense.

When I try to get DALL-E2 to dress my cat up  as other animals, one common failure mode seems to be... this.

Slumped in a giraffe-patterned hoodie is an extremely short-necked giraffe.
studio photo of a relaxed tortoiseshell cat wearing a giraffe costume

It has accurately put my cat into a plush giraffe onesie complete with hood, cuffs, and zipper, but it has also turned my cat into a giraffe.

There's a similar failure mode with its tortoise costumes.

A black turtle with a green-lined fabric shell. It's a little velvety in texture and the tips of its feet are a bit pawlike, but otherwise it resembles a turtle more than a cat.
studio photo of a playful black cat wearing a turtle costume

(It has also taken the libery of adding a pumpkin to the costume, I see.)

Here's what it did for a scorpion costume.

A cat in a hooded t-shirt. The hood has orange ears and black antennae with pom-poms on them. The hem of the tshirt is orange, and standing along the cat's spines are mesh plates like stegosaurus spines.
studio photo of a playful tortoiseshell cat wearing a scorpion costume
The cat is wearing a black hooded t-shirt with double pom-pom antennae on the hood. The cat has two wide yellow bee wings.
studio photo of a playful tortoiseshell cat wearing a scorpion costume
The cat is wearing a black and yellow striped t-shirt with a black and yellow hood with cow horns on it. The cat is also wearing striped double butterfly wings.
studio photo of a playful tortoiseshell cat wearing a scorpion costume

It has picked up enough about "scorpion" to know that it should start doing insectlike stuff, but it's throwing in ears, cow horns, bee stripes, wings, everything but the iconic scorpion tail and claws.

And here's "caterpillar".

A murder-eyed cat crouches in a black and yellow striped costume with wide floppy green collar. Two yellow caterpillar-shaped antennae emerge from the cat's back, both topped with tiny pom poms.
studio photo of a playful tuxedo cat wearing a caterpillar costume
Cat wearing a ridiculous pillbox hat with quadruple pom pom antennae. Around its neck is a sort of cape with a bow tie and fabric wings, and a soaring green and black wide fabric tail.
studio photo of a playful tuxedo cat wearing a caterpillar costume

Its antenna game is strong, I'll give it that.

Another category of costume that gives it trouble: things with horns and snouts.

Its triceratops is spikes everywhere, plus a curly unicorn horn.

Cat's costume has a high back lined with black spikes, black spots, and a pink underbelly. An enormous green unicorn horn juts above the opening for the cat's head.
studio photo of a playful white cat wearing a triceratops costume

Its elephant is also somehow a unicorn.

Cat's costume has floppy fabric ears and black, green, and yellow spots. Above the cat's own face is a cute button-nosed face and above that is a tall yellow unicorn horn.
tudio photo of a playful calico cat wearing an elephant costume

Its anteater, which shouldn't even HAVE horns, is also a unicorn. And the cat is some kind of weasel?

A weasel or fisher cat in a satin shirt with a fluffy white hood, topped with a black and orange striped horn.
studio photo of a playful siamese cat wearing an anteater costume

This is also an anteater costume. Here an anteater appears to also be some sort of quail in a sweater.

Cat wearing a tight blue and gold shirt like a starfleet uniform. It has an enormous dongle thing above its head, like a quail's head feathers.
studio photo of a playful siamese cat wearing an anteater costume

DALL-E2's tapir costumes were also really weird.

"Tapir"

Hooded costume has holes for the cat's own ears, but also two pink ears above that, topped with a unicorn horn. Its back has short black spikes.
studio photo of a playful tortoishell cat wearing a tapir costume

"Tapir"

Costume has black and yellow bee stripes, two short cowlike horns, and some kind of unidentifiable snowman thing on a stick emerging from the back of the neck.
studio photo of a playful tortoishell cat wearing a tapir costume

Clearly a tapir.

Cat in a red-trimmed yellow robe. Topping the robe's hood are three floppy green horns.
studio photo of a playful tortoishell cat wearing a tapir costume

It's not that it doesn't know what a tapir looks like. Here's its attempt at a tapir in a tapir costume.

A very recognizable tapir wearing a bold black and white tunic similar to a medieval warhorse's tunic.
studio photo of a tapir wearing a tapir costume

I've previously noticed that something is weird about how DALL-E2 deals with multiple kinds of animals in an image, usually choosing just one kind of animal to generate, or blending the two. It seems a similar kind of weirdness might apply to animals dressed as one another.

Bonus post: I find out how DALL-E2 does at dressing cats in some weird AI-generated costume concepts. For example, your classic "Pie and Jell-O costume".

Orange cat wearing a green top hat. Draped over its back are shiny strips of yellow, orange, and white.
studio photo of a playful orange cat wearing a Pie and Jell-O costume
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