What is a Mergopus?

 

Is this a mergopus?

What exactly is a mergopus?  Try searching on your favorite internet search engine and you will find no information on the word.  This is because it is a nonsense word I made up a few days ago.

However, if you type the word into an AI called DALL-E you will get a response and a surprizingly consistent one at that.  DALL-E is a neural net that has been trained to turn text into images.  The examples at its website are stunning.  The engine has even been used to generate a cover for Cosmopolitan magazine.

The general public does not have access to DALL-E, but we do have access to a simplier version via websites and an android app.  Originally called DALL-E mini, the version is rebranding itself as craiyon.

Not long ago a comedian named Guy Kelly typed in the nonsense name, Crungus, into the DALL-E mini app and got a horrifying result.

The details of the story can be found here.  Suffice it to say the the AI consistently returns images of this creature when prompted with the word Crungus, even though no such word existed prior to a few weeks ago and no similar images turn up on internet search engines.

I found this intriguing and started typing my own nonsense words into the app.  Many of them returned a series of random and seemingly unrelated images.  But when I type in "Mergopus", it consistently returns images of a red-billed waterfowl like those at the top of this post.  Variations of the prompt give similar results.  (click on any of the images below to see a larger view)

In an effort to learn more about this previously unknown bird, I typed in more prompts.

Inqiring about its anatomy was less than helpful.

I learned that the Murgopus has a wide range and has been encountered by many cultures over the course of history.

And that famous artists have used it for inspiration.

I find it very interesting that, while the DALL-E AI may not be sentient, it certainly has a (literal) imagination.

By the way, the Mergopus is in no way related to the following creatures:

The Murgopus

a mammalian carnivore

The Morgopus

a terrifying deep-sea creature with lots of teeth

The Mergopod

a gelatinous creature, also from the deep

The Mergopos

a large bony fish

I hope you have enjoyed this tour of a small fraction of DALL-E's imaginary creatures.  I find it surprising that the images are so consistent and that changing a single letter in a nonsense name yields such different results.