"We will have to wait to see exactly what lasting impact these tools will have on creative industries, and on the entire field of AI. Generative AI has become one more tool for expression. Altman says he now uses generated images in personal messages the way he used to use emoji. “Some of my friends don’t even bother to generate the image—they type the prompt,” he says.

But text-to-image models may be just the start. Generative AI could eventually be used to produce designs for everything from new buildings to new drugs—think text-to-X. 

“People are going to realize that technique or craft is no longer the barrier—it’s now just their ability to imagine,” says Nelson.

Computers are already used in several industries to generate vast numbers of possible designs that are then sifted for ones that might work. Text-to-X models would allow a human designer to fine-tune that generative process from the start, using words to guide computers through an infinite number of options toward results that are not just possible but desirable.

Computers can conjure spaces filled with infinite possibility. Text-to-X will let us explore those spaces using words. 

“I think that’s the legacy,” says Altman. “Images, video, audio—eventually, everything will be generated. I think it is just going to seep everywhere.”