The viral ‘Harry Potter in Star Wars’ AI images are just the start of a global competition

polygon.com:

Because it’s May 4th, aka Star Wars Day in some sectors of the galaxy (because “May the 4th be with you,” you see), Star Wars memes and references are all over the internet today. And so are a series of AI images that depict Harry Potter characters as Star Wars characters, with Jedi and Sith interpretations of Harry Potter and Voldemort, a Wookiee/Hagrid mashup, Severus Snape as a pointy-eared alien, and more. These images, cropping up on Twitter and TikTok, often aren’t properly credited, which is a shame both for the sake of the creators and because knowing where they’re from is an invitation into a huge gallery of fandom mashups. At the same time, these images really show off the limitations around AI tools, and their tendency to repeat certain patterns.

These images are from Freelancer.com’s Harry Potter Reimagined competition, a worldwide contest that specifically asked entrants to use AI tools to generate images of Harry Potter characters in alternate settings. The Star Wars mashup images were submitted by Abderrahmane B., an Algerian artist and graphic designer who earned runner-up status in the contest. The winner, Bangladesh designer and web developer Rabbi Ali, put Harry Potter characters in The Walking Dead, imagining them as victims of a zombie apocalypse. (Or in Voldemort’s case, as a zombie.)

In a press release announcing the winners, Freelancer.com communications manager Marko Zitko said the contest was meant to push the site’s freelancers-for-hire into experimenting with new AI art generation tools. “Our latest Fast 50 data shows there’s a growing demand for generative AI skills,” he said, “so we wanted to create a contest that will let our freelancers experiment with powerful AI tools and see how they