WE CAN BE HEROES, IF JUST FOR ONE PROMPT: What Is the ChatGPT action figure prompt?

Action figures — small, poseable dolls often modeled after superheroes or movie characters – are popular collectibles, especially for fans of Marvel and DC. With this new tool, you’re no longer limited to fictional icons. Now, you can see what your own collectible figure might look like.
How to make your AI action figure

Go to the ChatGPT website or app.

Upload your photo, then enter the following prompt:

“Use this photo of me to create an action figure of myself in a blister pack, in the style like a premium collectible toy. The figure should be standing up and have a relaxed, friendly smile. The blister pack should have a header with the text ‘[ACTION FIGURE NAME]’ in large letters and a subheading of ‘[SUBHEADING]’ below it. Include accessories in compartments to the side of the figure: [LIST OF ACCESSORIES].”

Not surprisingly, quite a few pundits had fun with this new feature last night, such as these from Gabriella Hoffman and Karol Markowicz:

(Yes, of course I tried it as well. But my ChatGPT action figure left me thinking that I had a bright future in Hollywood as J.K. Simmons’ stand-in.)

Also not surprisingly, while simultaneously generating loads of action figure versions of themselves, some lefty Websites are tut-tutting this new feature: The action figure trend is the latest way people are misusing the power of AI – and I wish I could stop doing it.

This is all good fun, but there are concerns.

First of all, AI image generation is not without cost. Sure, there’s the price of a ChatGPT Plus membership (around $20 / £16 / AU$30 a month), although you can generate around three images a day on the free tier, depending on current demand. Perhaps more importantly, there’s the cost of AI models like 4o.

A Queens University Library report claims, “Artificial Intelligence models consume an enormous amount of water and emit large amounts of carbon in their production, training, operation, and maintenance.” Another Cornell University study calls out AI’s growing freshwater use footprint, claiming “training the GPT-3 language model in Microsoft‘s state-of-the-art U.S. data centers can directly evaporate 700,000 liters of clean freshwater.”

If you don’t think these AI trends and the memes they spawn are attracting wide use, stressing the system, and possibly eating natural resources, just look at OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s comments.

We have a joke in my house that every time we create one of these AI memes, it kills a tree. That’s hyperbole, of course, but it’s safe to say that AI content generation is not without costs, and perhaps we should be thinking about it and using it differently[.]

Self-styled environmentalists are burning Teslas on the eve of the 55th anniversary of “Earth Day,” so I’m not sure that’s much of an argument in 2025.

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey of Hot Air emailed me his attempt at Mego-fication:

Reverse Jim Cramer tweeted his own appropriately-styled action figure:

And for completion sake, here’s my attempt from last night:

Like I said above, not sure what’s going on with the J.K. Simmons-ing of my chin, but it was a fun first effort. Chat GPT spat that image out in less than a minute; creating this sort of thing, with its fake blister-pack imagery, die-cut style background, the font work, and slightly plastic-y appearance of the “action figure” would have taken at least a half-hour to an hour of donkeywork in Photoshop.

UPDATE: Seen on Facebook: