Artificial stamp design

The Swiss Crypto Stamp 3.0 has been designed by artificial intelligence. But not entirely. Humans were also involved. And AI systems are not intelligent in human terms.

The 14 Swiss Crypto Stamp 3.0 designs – Walter and his pack – are new interpretations of Switzerland’s national dog. “St Bernard” was one of the terms that the AI system found as a guideline through human input and used as the basis for creating images. The participants selected terms related to the topics of Switzerland and digitization and then chose an art style. This is how the images for Swiss Crypto Stamp 3.0 were created as part of the Swiss Digital Days event in autumn 2022. Over 2,500 digital artworks were created by the AI system.

Machines with a lot of data

The goal was never to create photorealistic images, but to produce an artistic realization of the terms that had been entered. Photorealistic AI images are also controversial, because they allow for all kinds of fake imagery. Discussions about the ethical use of AI have therefore been flaring up more frequently in recent times.

AI is artificial and seemingly intelligent but in fact uses trained data material to create new images or provide information on all kinds of topics. Machines equipped with AI can solve problems with the help of data and mathematical data evaluation. In other words, a type of calculator for all manner of challenges.

Testing future technology today

AI systems have been in development since the 1960s and have found their way into many places in a mild form, such as Siri on the iPhone. Strong, specially trained AI systems have also been performing specific tasks for some time already. Twitter and Facebook, for example, use AI to compile newsfeeds. AI is the powerful new technology of the future that could turn many things on their head. The third version of the Swiss Crypto Stamp is dedicated to the genesis of the AI era. It highlights the value of the discussions on this important issue. More about that in this blog at another time.