Would you get inked by AI?

Yes, we talk about artificial intelligence a lot, but AI becoming a tattoo artist wasn’t on our 2023 bingo card.

Before we conjure up nightmarish images of needle-wielding robots, fret not — AI is just handling the designs (for now).

Per The Information, new generative AI startups are helping people imagine the ink of their dreams:

• TattoosAI lets you describe your tattoo idea and pick a style and color to generate design options.
• Tattoo Jenny has users input one or two keywords and choose from 12 styles.
• Users have generated 1m+ designs on BlackInk.AI since November 2022 through pre-made prompts and styles.

Generative AI has the advantage of speed when it comes to tattoos: Where an artist might spend hours reworking a design for a client, an AI app can spit out hundreds of iterations in mere seconds.

Much tattoo about nothing

As with any new tech, not everyone is thrilled. But “flash tattoos” — pre-made designs that live in books or on walls at tattoo shops — have long existed, and AI generation might just be the modern-day version.

BlackInk.AI is even planning a visualization tool for those with tat regrets that could take an uploaded image of your existing tattoo and generate a new design to cover it up seamlessly.

Added perk: Artificial intelligence won’t judge you for reworking that tattoo of your ex’s name.