The Vietnam Poker Image that AI Couldn’t Handle

By Jonathan Raab

21 May 2024

Jonathan Raab 21 May 2024

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AI Image maker DALL.E fails to remove hats from picture
"More hats is less" says advanced AI image program
Poker in Vietnam takes its hat off

AI's First Attempt at a Vietnamese Poker Image (credit: DALL.E)

AI Fails to Correctly Render Image of People Playing Poker in Vietnam

Last week I reported on the cancellation of the WPT Prime event in Vietnam and how that negatively affects the prospects for future live poker events in the country. It has since been reported on social media that the spate of cancellations seems to be confined to events in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi and that events in other parts of the country are still taking place with no issues. Nevertheless, the lack of clear information flow on the situation will dent the confidence of international operators and players alike.

And while Vietnam is struggling to host poker events, it seems that AI image generator DALL.E is also having issues to produce an image of poker being played in Vietnam. After writing the article, I thought I’d use AI to generate a pic to accompany the story. I imagined a scene in a typical outdoors setting in Vietnam and requested a wide version, to avoid having to resize it for the PokerWired homepage.

First Attempt

The first effort that DALL.E produced, which to be fair was quite close to the image I had imagined would be created, is the picture at the top of this article.

However, I wasn’t entirely satisfied, as the traditional Vietnamese hat that DALL.E decided to add was a little bit too stereotypical. Now I’ve never been to Vietnam so maybe some people do play poker wearing these but I just wasn’t comfortable with it, so I asked the AI image maker to redo the pic and remove the traditional Vietnamese hat.

Second Effort

This was the result of the updated request, which DALL.E proudly introduced by saying ‘here is the redone image, without any traditional hats’

Poker in Vietnam with No Hats Please — Second attempt by DALL.E adds an extra hat instead of removing it.

Hats off, Please!

Asking for no hat resulted in there now being two hats in the newly updated picture. OK, let me give this AI dullard one more shot at it, I thought and asked again, stressing that the previous instructions had not been followed and please could it try again, with 'absolutely no traditional Vietnamese hats anywhere in the image'.

Feeling quietly confident that I’d been suitably dominant and that DULL.E would be sufficiently subordinate and comply with my request, I went off to fetch a drink from the fridge. Upon my return, I expected to see what would surely be a triumph of an image that would enable me to finally publish my article. But alas, I was greeted with this...

Poker in Vietnam AI No Hats Fail — Third attempt and its going from bad to worse

A New Approach

Fearing that if I asked again I would receive a kaleidoscope of nothing but hats, I decided to switch tactic. My new approach was to ask DALL.E to draw a map of Vietnam with a sign next to it saying ‘Poker Events Cancelled.’ But oh no, I forgot, DALL.E is completely illiterate and seems to go out of its way to misspell words that even a trained pigeon would have trouble getting wrong. This what I got back...

Poker Events Cancelled in Vietnam — Arghhh

And Finally...

After several further failed attempts to spell it right, I resigned to asking simply for a map of Vietnam with a red cross through it and a poker chip for context. Job finally done.