Giant AI-Generated Christmas Mural Removed After People Notice Some Truly Unhinged Details

Though many of us are worried about the prevalence of AI and its potential to take away the jobs of professional writers, artists, and designers, one truly haunted Christmas mural proves that AI is not ready to take on the responsibility just yet.

Ample theories are available for how this unhinged mural came to be, but a favorite is that an upper executive didn't want to approve an art budget for this year's mural and suggested AI instead, so a designer planned the worst option possible. Or someone turned immediately to AI, barely checked their work, and just hit the "approve" button.

Either way, we finally know what the true nightmare before Christmas actually is.

Standing at more than 100 feet wide, according to one Redditor, the AI-generated Christmas mural was displayed in the English town directly above the popular French restaurant, Côte Kingston upon Thames.

Trust us, and only take just a quick glance at this before you continue reading:

@Emily_McKenzie/Twitter (X)

Admittedly, at a quick glance, the image looks innocent and old-time Christmassy enough. At the front of the mural, there's a condensed population of boats either pulling in or leaving the port area, where a Nativity scene sits centrally. There are other nods to Christmas and winter as well, including Santa Claus, a snowman with a hat and scarf, and mini-scenes of spending time around the fire.

But when you start to look more closely, you start to see a lot of nightmarish faces.

@Emily_McKenzie/Twitter (X)

Not to mention, maniacal laughter, everywhere.

@Emily_McKenzie/Twitter (X)

A lot of people have arms that look more animalistic, often dog- or horse-like.

@Emily_McKenzie/Twitter (X)

Or even a paddle that appears to have a dog's paw attached.

@Emily_McKenzie/Twitter (X)

Speaking of dogs, what happened to them?

@Emily_McKenzie/Twitter (X)

Also, really, does a snowman make sense in this scene? Why does it look like an angry man is plunging his arm through the back of the poor three-eyed snowman's head?

@Emily_McKenzie/Twitter (X)

And what exactly is Santa Claus doing here?

@Emily_McKenzie/Twitter (X)

Snapshots of the mural spread across Bluesky, Twitter (X), and Reddit, where people were a mixture of mortified and amused.

u/clive892/Reddit

u/rubberbandhands/Reddit; u/Leucurus/Reddit

u/Netsforex_/Reddit

Some have drawn parallels to Charles Dickens from the mural, as well as similarities to the haunting artwork of the Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder and the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch, but there have been other interesting theories, as well.

"I was staring at this with my girlfriend the other day, and she couldn’t see anything wrong with it, hahaha. At first glance, it’s almost passable, but when you look deeper, you see the AI slop horror." - AndThatHowYouGetAnts

"'At first glance' is exactly right, because that's how AI images are generated."

"The computer is just randomly changing pixels and asking an image classifier to tell it how much its current noise matches the user's prompt. It does that until it runs out of iterations, or the match is extremely high, and there's no way for it to look at the details and say, 'well, that hand obviously makes no sense,' or 'why does that dog have a seagull for a head.'" - cmsj

"The confusing thing about this, is that if you put a carefully crafted prompt into Midjourney and then spend a few minutes just reiterating the prompt, you will easily get a cohesive and accurate picture with no mental bits like this. So it’s either deliberate, or someone literally put one sh*tty prompt in and said, ‘that’ll do.’ Effort level is 1/100 or pure f**kery." - ohnobobbins

According to London Centric, Côte's restaurant manager believes that the piece is a political commentary of some kind, possibly about immigration, but no one's clear on what that commentary is or should be.

"There's clearly something political about it, but nobody knows what it is."

The AI-generated Christmas mural has since been taken down after the flurry of complaints and inquiries about its nature and message poured in.

AI is inevitably here to stay, and art will continue to transform because of it, but at least if AI is going to be incorporated, this is as good of a reason as ever to incorporate thoughtful and thorough editors during the approval process.