Loab is a bizarre and interesting... thing? Woman? Creature? Loab is quite possibly the first internet cryptid, if you don't count things like creepypastas or SCPs. What separates her from the stories of creepypastas is that, unlike creepypastas, Loab isn't a fictional story devised by someone on the internet. Whereas SCPs and creepypastas are fictional stories presented as online campfire stories or case files, Loab is a being generated by AI, a tool many already consider creepy. But who or what is Loab, and how did she come to be? Thankfully, she is well documented, and we know her inception.
In 2022, Steph Maj Swanson, a Swedish artist was experimenting with AI art generation. Using an AI art program, Steph wanted to see what sorts of images she could get with limited prompts. During her testing, she decided to feed the prompt "Brando" to see if it would generate Marlon Brando without needing his first name. The AI did its magic and the godfather himself, Marlon Brando was generated. But the site she used has an interesting feature, where if you add "-1" to a prompt, it generates the opposite of what you put in. Swanson input the prompt: "Brando::-1" to see what it would generate. It's interesting to think about what an AI image generator thinks of humanity, and what the opposite of a person is.
Interestingly, one of the images generated by the AI for the opposite of Marlon Brando was a skyline with the words "DIGITA PNTICS" beneath. As curious as it is to get an image of a skyline as the opposite of a person, it leads to numerous questions. What makes a skyline the opposite of a person? What did the AI want to convey with DIGITA PNTICS? But most importantly, what would happen if we put "DIGITA PNTICS::-1" into the prompt? Surely it would come back and make Marlon Brando again. Well Steph had this exact thought. Putting in the prompt, however didn't lead to pictures of Marlon Brando. Instead, a bizarre picture of a woman with rosacea on her cheeks and a harrowed expression emerged, and in the corner of the image was the word "LOAB" among other incohesive script. From this point forward, any prompt that had "LOAB" in it, would generate this bizarre woman.
From here, Steph began to experiment with Loab. The program she used has another feature where you can combine two images in order to create synthesized, new images. But, with Loab, any time her image was combined with another, it would lead to inexplicably gory, macabre imagery that was often as gruesome as it was depressing. There are a few recurring themes in Loab's generations: Loab almost always has some sort of rosacea or darkness around her eyes, in many generations, Loab is also seen with smaller figures, giving her a weird presence that's both maternal and unsettling, and Loab is never smiling.
After a while, Steph decided to try and use the image combinations in order to slowly dilute and phase Loab out. Through a combination of images, modifiers, and attributes, Steph sought to slowly dilute Loab out. But, despite numerous generations, Loab persisted. She would appear in increasingly strange forms, sometimes being front and center, sometimes being in the background, sometimes being abstract, but no matter what, Loab would remain. Steph even had generations where Loab would disappear, only to re-emerge later. Despite the creepy and persistent nature, Steph maintains that Loab isn't some sentient creature or ghost haunting the machine. Loab is and will forever be data in a program. But that assertion didn't prevent Loab's virality. As Loab's story became increasingly popular, other artists have used other AI generators to recreate the unsettling woman. This recurring data that's being generated and re-uploaded into the cyberspace means that other AI models are drawing on that information for their own generations. This means that if we ever wanted to get rid of Loab, we missed our chance. She's now permanently ingrained in the cyberspace and can be drawn on again in the future. There's not much more to say, so I'll leave a small gallery of Loab pictures below, save for some of the more gory photos. Steph's twitter can be found in the sources below, she uploaded stuff about Loab for a while, so you can find a decently-sized archive of Loab pictures from 2022 on her page.
