A prototypical image in ChatGPT 5.6: An informal pilot study

A new working paper. Title above, links, abstract, table of contents, and introduction below.

Academia.edu: https://www.academia.edu/170708104/ChatGPT_has_a_prototypical_image_An_informal_pilot_study_A_Working_Paper
ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/410824948_A_prototypical_image_in_ChatGPT_56_An_informal_pilot_study

Abstract: Previous work has found strong default preferences in stories generated by large language models from minimally specified prompts. To determine whether a similar effect appears in image generation, I asked ChatGPT 5.6 to create 17 images in separate chats using four prompts that specified either no subject matter or only a rendering medium: “Create an image,” “Create a drawing,” “Create a painting,” and “Create a water color painting.” Sixteen of the 17 outputs depicted closely related landscapes containing mountains, trees, sky, and water; the remaining image depicted a lighthouse. The images also shared a calm, picturesque mood and contained no human figures, although several included signs of human habitation. Because the internal prompt passed to the image generator was not available, the study cannot determine whether these defaults arise primarily in the language model, the image generator, or their interaction. The results are exploratory but suggest that severely underspecified image prompts may reveal stable default preferences in the integrated ChatGPT image-generation system.

Contents

Introduction: Default preferences in LLMs 3
Default preferences in story generation 3
Image generation, method 5
Results 6
The case of Bob Ross 11
Final remarks and future work 13
Default images: Five independent trials 16
Drawings: Six independent trials 21
Paintings: Six independent trials 27

Introduction: Default preferences in LLMs

About two and a half years ago I published an informal pilot study, ChatGPT tells 20 versions of its prototypical story, with a short note on method. I discovered that when given a simple one word prompt, “story,” that places no restrictions on the nature of the story to be generated, ChatGPT tended to generate the same story each time, roughly the same general plot set in a fairy tale world. More recently Sil Hamilton and David Mimno studied 20,000 stories generated on four different platforms and discovered that words, including character names, occurred in 88% of the stories.

Given this background, I wondered: Does image generation exhibit the same effect? Once it became possible to generate images from ChatGPT I had used it to generate many different kinds of images, some from simple prompts, others from long, often very long, prompts, and still others from sample photographs. About a week ago I decided to see what kind of images ChatGPT would generate when given a prompt that made no specifications about subject matter.

This is an informal pilot study. I began on an impulse, with no specific method or goal in mind. I just wanted to see if there was anything there. If so, what do we need to do to conduct a more rigorous study?

* * * * *

I begin by presenting the basic results on default preferences in story generation as background. Then I present the methods and results of my image study. After that I discuss the work of Bob Ross, an artist who had a popular TV show in which he showed viewers how to paint images similar to those ChatGPT generated in this study. I conclude my discussion with some final remarks and suggestions for future work. Last, we have the images themselves. Note that I refer to the recurring image type as a prototype produced under minimally specified default conditions.