Have you ever wondered what AI was capable of back in 2015? To be perfectly honest, I didn’t even realize image generation was possible 10 years ago, but now I’ve seen what it used to look like, and it’s fascinating to see the evolution.
These images, which depict the prompt “A stop sign is flying in blue skies” were shared on Reddit to showcase just how good AI image generation has become compared to when the technology first burst on the scene.
The post from u/3Thirty-Eight8 doesn’t provide details on the AI models used for either the 2015 or the 2025 image, but some investigation reveals that the original image is actually the first text-to-image artwork ever created.
The model used back in 2015 was called alignDRAW and created by Elman Mansimov. The image depicts a blurry red circular object in front of a blue background, and an NFT of the image was sold at auction by Christie’s in 2023 for over $30,000.
Comparatively, the 2025 version of the prompt, which likely uses Google’s Nano Banana or GPT-5, showcases a detailed red stop sign in the sky – the difference is night and day.
Al images, same prompt but 10 years apart (2015 & 2025) from r/ChatGPT
AI is evolving at a rapid pace
It was just a few months ago that AI image generators couldn’t create text without creating a product that looked like some kind of ancient hieroglyphic. Now, new AI tools are released almost weekly, improving the capabilities of what it means to generate an image from a prompt.
Last week, ByteDance’s Seedream 4.0 model took AI image generation to a whole new level by creating terrifyingly real images that are almost impossible to tell apart from reality.
Obviously, when that original stop sign image was created back in 2015, AI tools like we see today were barely in their infancy, but just looking at how far we’ve come makes me apprehensive for the future. How realistic will the best AI image generators become? And at what point do we completely lose sight of reality?
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john-anthony.disotto@futurenet.com (John-Anthony Disotto)
