Google Unleashes Project Genie, Letting Users Create Virtual Worlds From Still Photos

by · Peta Pixel
Users can create worlds on Project Genie.

Google has begun rolling out Project Genie, a generative AI model that can create virtual worlds from text prompts or just a single photo.

Previewed back in August, Genie, from Google DeepMind, is a world-building tool in which users create their own environments that expand in real time.

Users create their own characters and choose how to get around the worlds they make — from walking to riding, flying to driving, or anything they can think of. Users control the characters like a video game.

Powered by Google’s Nana Banana Pro and Gemini, the “World Sketching” feature lets users preview the world they’re about to jump into and fine-tune it. “You can also define your perspective for the character — such as first-person or third-person — giving you control over how you experience the scene before you enter,” Google says in a blog post.

Users can also iterate upon existing worlds and explore curated ones in the gallery. The footage can later be downloaded.

Project Genie is still a work-in-progress. Google warns that the worlds “might not look completely true-to-life or always adhere closely to prompts or images, or real-world physics.” There’s also a 60-second limit to generations.

Back in August, Google said that there would be “promptable events” that alter the world as the user ventures through. That feature is not yet available in the prototype that is being rolled out today. It is exclusively available to Google AI Ultra subscribers in the U.S. only. There’s also a minimum age requirement of 18-years-old.

At $250 per month, Google AI Ultra is the most expensive subscription tier. Only a lucky few will be able to get their hands on the model imminently. It would be fascinating and potentially horrifying to see what would happen if a well-known photograph were used as a prompt. Photographers might also be curious to see what would happen if they used one of their own works as the starting point of a virtual world.

People will undoubtedly use Genie to create virtual worlds of recognizable IP. When OpenAI released Sora, its AI video generator, people immediately began taking famous characters from movies, TV, and pop culture and getting them to act out silly and outrageous scenes.