Artificial intelligence is technology that lets computers do things usually associated with human intelligence, including learning, problem solving and generating text or images[2]. In meme culture it also refers to the wave of tools like ChatGPT, Midjourney and ElevenLabs used to make memes since late 2022[3].

Where did AI come from?

The concept dates back to Alan Turing's 1950 Turing test and John McCarthy coining the term in 1956[3]. Modern AI memes trace to OpenAI's November 2022 public release of ChatGPT and the image generators that followed[3].

What does AI mean in memes?

It usually means either memes about AI (rogue-robot jokes, chatbot screenshots) or memes made with AI (generator images, voice deepfakes, ChatGPT-scripted bits)[3].

How do you use AI to make memes?

People generate images in Midjourney, DALL-E or Stable Diffusion, script text in ChatGPT, and clone voices with tools like ElevenLabs, then post the outputs to Twitter, Reddit and TikTok[3]. The humor usually depends on visible AI artifacts like warped hands or an obviously synthetic voice[3].

Is AI still popular as a meme subject?

Yes. Generative tools stayed a live meme source through 2023 as companies kept accelerating rather than pausing development[6].

Cleverbot was an early public-facing chatbot launched on the web in 2006 by Rollo Carpenter, whose learning system dated back to 1988; screenshots of its strange replies became an early meme format[4].

What is the AI pause letter?

It was an open letter published in March 2023 by the Future of Life Institute asking AI labs to pause training of systems more powerful than GPT-4 for at least six months to study the risks[5]. Signatories included Yoshua Bengio, Yuval Noah Harari, Jaan Tallinn and Elon Musk[5].

Did the AI pause actually happen?

No. Wired reported six months later that labs had accelerated instead, and Musk himself launched xAI in July 2023[6].

What are AI Presidents memes?

Short videos where ElevenLabs-cloned voices of Obama, Biden and Trump play games or argue in Discord, part of the deepfake-audio wave enabled by AI voice tools in 2023[3].

What is generative AI?

A category of AI, built on machine learning and deep learning, that creates original text, images, video or audio; it drives most of the AI meme output people share today[2].

What is the Singularity?

A hypothetical future moment when machine intelligence surpasses human intelligence and possibly becomes sentient, often cited in fears about AI going wrong[3].

AI

2022meme subject / creative tooltrending

Published September 25, 2026 · Version 4.0.1

Artificial intelligence is both a subject of internet humor and, since the 2022 launch of ChatGPT, a tool people use to make memes themselves. Generative image and text models flipped AI from a distant sci-fi punchline into a hands-on creative medium, spawning meme formats like Erosion Bird, Alligator Kick and AI Presidents Gaming.

ai memes ai generated memes tech humor memes ai image generation memes silicon valley satire memes

Overview

AI shows up in memes two ways at once. It is the punchline (rogue robots, hallucinating chatbots, cursed image generators) and it is the paintbrush (Midjourney renders, ChatGPT scripts, ElevenLabs voice clones stitched into shortform video). IBM frames modern AI as a stack of nested ideas, with generative models sitting on top of machine learning and deep learning2, and the meme surge that started in late 2022 rides that specific top layer.

The recognisable formats fall into a few buckets. There are the intentionally broken image generations like Erosion Bird or Alligator Kick, which lean into the uncanny artifacts of early diffusion models3. There are deepfake voice bits like AI Presidents Gaming, where cloned Obama, Biden and Trump voices trash-talk each other on Discord using ElevenLabs3. And there are chatbot screenshots, a format Cleverbot pioneered years earlier when users would post transcripts of its strange non-sequiturs online4.

The joke usually depends on the seams showing. Six fingers, warped text, an over-earnest ChatGPT refusal, a president saying something no president would say. When the output looks too clean it stops being funny; when it looks obviously synthetic it becomes a meme3.

Origin & Background

Platform

OpenAI ChatGPT (public launch) / Twitter, Reddit, TikTok (viral spread)

Date

2022

The idea of thinking machines predates the meme by decades. Alan Turing described what became known as the Turing test in 1950, and the term "artificial intelligence" was coined by John McCarthy in 19563. Cleverbot, launched on the web in 2006 by Rollo Carpenter after he began building the underlying learning system in 1988, was the first AI most internet users actually talked to, and its odd replies fuelled a small screenshot-meme economy in the early 2010s4.

The modern AI meme wave began when OpenAI opened ChatGPT to the public in late November 20223. Within months the release of DALL-E, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion image generators, plus ElevenLabs voice cloning, gave meme-makers a full toolkit3. By March 2023 the technology was moving fast enough that the Future of Life Institute published an open letter, signed by figures including Yoshua Bengio, Yuval Noah Harari, Jaan Tallinn and Elon Musk, asking labs to pause training of systems more powerful than GPT-4 for six months5.

How It Spread

The meme side of AI exploded across 2023. Free browser access to ChatGPT gave everyone a shareable text generator, and screenshots of it writing cursed poetry, refusing simple prompts or confidently making up facts became a running Twitter format3. Midjourney and DALL-E images with obvious tell-tale artifacts, six-fingered hands, mangled text, uncanny anatomy, filled subreddits, and specific images like Erosion Bird and Alligator Kick got named and catalogued as recurring formats3.

Audio deepfakes were the third pillar. ElevenLabs made voice cloning accessible enough that fan-made clips of "AI Presidents" playing Fortnite or arguing on Discord became a genre of their own, spreading heavily on TikTok and YouTube Shorts3. Alongside the humour was a parallel news cycle: the March 2023 pause letter got major coverage in Wired and elsewhere, with the letter warning that GPT-4-class systems could "automate jobs and spread misinformation"5.

The pause did not happen. Six months later Wired reported that companies had instead accelerated, with Musk himself announcing xAI in July 2023 to compete with OpenAI, Google and Microsoft6. Future of Life head Max Tegmark told the outlet he had never really expected voluntary slowdowns, and that his actual goal was to legitimise public conversation about AI risk6. Through that whole period the memes kept coming, and generative AI stayed a live meme subject rather than fading with the news hype.

AI

Overview

Origin & Background

How It Spread

Frequently Asked Questions

References (6)