This is what MidJourney AI thinks the coronation of King Charles will look like on May 6

The upcoming coronation of King Charles III is the most hotly anticipated event of this year – so MailOnline asked an AI bot to provide a sneak peak… and the results of a mix of suprising and scary.

These strange visuals give a glimpse of how scenes may play out at Westminster Abbey on Saturday, May 6 and how the nation might rally to watch the historic event unfold – Britain’s first coronation since 1953. 

‘God Save the King’, cry the children, their little hands nursing pints of frothing ale, their faces taut in terror. 

They stare through the gloom and grey hair, gawping at pub screens showing the King being ferried to Westminster Abbey in a golden articulated lorry.

The coronation is the event of the year. The world is watching, though perhaps wondering, what on earth is going on? 

These pictures were created by digital artist David Lloyd-Jones who used artificial intelligence software MidJourney for these brilliant and bizarre creations.

MidJourney is one of a variety of online tools used by a burgeoning group of AI artists – although the software most familiar to people at the moment is ChatGPT, which produces words, not images.

May’s dazzling celebrations will reflect Charles’ desire to be the ‘people’s King’ and will also give representatives from the Commonwealth and NHS workers a chance to shine, before members of the public are encouraged to spend time volunteering on the nation’s additional Bank Holiday. 

The three-day extravaganza will give millions of Brits a day off, with tens of thousands expected to line the streets in central London to watch the ceremony – the first of its kind in more than 70 years.

Using Buckingham Palace’s schedule for the day as his guide, Mr Lloyd-Jones fed a series of prompts into the AI software – but, he admits, it took a lot of trial and error to achieve the results.  

Lloyd-Jones fed a series of prompts into the AI software – but, he admits, it took a lot of trial and error to achieve the results.  

The series of images are an attempt to capture the day’s proceedings, from the royals attending Westminster Abbey, the media scrum outside to the huddled royals fans watching from pub TV screens.

Mr Lloyd Jones told MailOnline: ‘When I was asked to create these images of how Artificial Intelligence art creation program Midjourney might see the upcoming coronation of King Charles III, I was confused at first as to why it was struggling – All the pictures of King Charles himself were unrecognisable!

‘It wasn’t long before I realised that the program doesn’t yet know who King Charles III is – I had to provide input prompts featuring the words ‘coronation of Prince Charles of Wales as king of England’. This is because AI art, and AI as a whole generally, relies on pre-existing ideas and verbiage.

‘Places, names, and concepts that are already in ‘the cloud’ of data AI uses are what turns the verbal prompt you feed it into the images you see in this article. 

‘There are no images of ‘King Charles III’ being crowned yet because it hasn’t happened yet – it’s that simple. 

‘However, the AI knows what the crown looks like, and what ‘Prince Charles’ looks like – Put those concepts together and voila!

‘Another concept that Midjourney struggled to create for this article included a recreation of the famous ‘Buckingham Palace Balcony’ pictures we’ve seen in the past, with the whole Royal Family beaming down from the terrace.

‘Unfortunately generating large numbers of distinct, recognisable individuals – at the same time, in the same image – is beyond it’s current capabilities, and is one reason why AI won’t be replacing real human concept artists or photographers any time soon’. 

He added: ‘Even after you’ve created what you think will be the perfect prompt, you may still be surprised, and potentially disappointed, with the resulting images. 

‘This is where the patience aspect comes in – You may need to tweak your prompt and re-request it dozens of times before you get what you’re looking for! And once you have something you like, there may well be unforeseen issues that need to be fixed in afterwards with your favourite editing software’. 

In recent months the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to create incredible images has exploded, with the internet now awash with millions of pictures designed by computers. 

Mr Lloyd-Jones added that despite the notion that AI-assisted artwork may be ‘low-effort and lacking in skill,’ the it requires considerable that human input is essential for creating meaningful pieces.

 Social media users have complained that digitally-created images sometimes have people grinning with mouths full of teeth, extra fingers, hands growing from hips and tattoos that look like mould growing on their skin. 

The art, however, has drastically improved in recent years. More than five years ago AI systems were producing nightmare blobs, but now can create epic, detailed scenes. 

Mr Lloyd-Jones says creating AI-generated images requires considerable patience, and the artist may need to tweak and resubmit their prompt to the bot many times over before getting their desired visual.

Even then, there could still be ‘unforeseen issues’ that need to be corrected with editing software. 

The artist explained that Midjourney will often add an extra finger and create eyes that can ‘look very odd if not fixed in post’. 

The AI program MidJourney is also the name of the independent research lab that produced it. The team is led by David Holz, who co-founded it.

The beta launch of MidJourney on July 12, 2022, however, a few months earlier on March 14, a request was made for Twitter and Reddit users to share high-quality photographs to help with the system’s training.

The AI firm has been working on improving the program’s algorithms, and releases updates every few months. The current version, the one Mr Lloyd-Jones used, is version four. 

A new version five has been tipped for release since January this year, but so far, fans are still waiting for it.  

Other art-generating AI programs include Shutterstock, Stable Diffusion, DALL-E 2, DALL-E Mini, NightCafe, Deep Dream Generator, Artbreeder and DeepAI.      

A more commonly-known AI tool is the controversial ChatGPT, which has already been banned in schools across the world over fears it encourages cheating and laziness.

The tool works in a similar way to Google, scouring the billions of webpages and articles across the internet to produce written responses. An easy win for so-called ‘lazy’ students, wanting essays written.   

But the International Baccalaureate (IB), which offers an alternative to A-levels, is bucking this trend by permitting the use of ChatGPT to write essays.

Students undertaking IB programmes will be able to quote passages generated 1by the chatbot – as long as they do not try to pass it off as their own words.

Earlier this year, the AI tool upset singer-songwriter Nick Cave, who reacted with fury at a fan’s attempt to recreate his lyrics using the tool. 

The Bad Seeds frontman wrote a scathing review, slamming the song as ‘bulls***’ and ‘a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human, and, well, I don’t much like it.’ 

MailOnline used the tool to produce songs by other famous artists, from Johnny Cash to Taylor Swift and Freddie Mercury to similarly bad results.