“This Prompt Contains Prohibited Words”

Language, Ekphrasis, and the Limits of the Generative Imagination

Abstract

This essay wonders aloud about the limitations of generative AI imagery in relationship to descriptive language. It looks at the questionably ekphrastic nature of generative AI and asks whether models and platforms such as Dall-E 2 spur creativity or constrain it by the underlying and opaque way the models use literal descriptive language.