Two weeks ago, I tried that GenChess thing that Google Labs released. When prompted, I asked for a chess set to be made with pieces resembling Australian birds. What it produced was a little underwhelming, but I was curious to know what Gemini itself could produce when prompted for a single piece: an image of a pawn shaped like a cockatiel.

Here’s the prompt:

Please generate a photo realistic image of a 3D pawn chess piece which looks like a cockatiel. The piece must look like it is made with wood. The image must be generated with a white background and with a parallel projection.

And here’s the result:

An AI image, generated by Google Gemini, of a wooden cockatiel perched on the base of a chess piece

Not bad. Certainly better than what I could produce. And it’d be fun playing with such a set should one actually existed1.

It got me thinking as to what birds I’d choose if such a chess set were made in real life. My current idea is cockatiels as pawns, emus for kings (large and mobile, and important enough for such a role) and maybe cassowary as queens (also large and mobile, and actually quite dangerous in real life). I haven’t got positions for the other roles just yet.

  1. Might be that such a set does. I haven’t actually looked. ↩︎