This AI generates absurdist memes that are funnier than what most real humans create

• The founder of a website used for creating memes, Imgflip, has harnessed AI technology to build a meme generator for 48 of its most popular templates.
• The technology used for This Meme Does Not Exist is the same that's behind deepfakes, the eerily realistic but completely fake depictions that have popped up in recent years.
• Check out some of the best memes that were generated for Business Insider, and see where you can go to create some yourself.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Internet humorists who spend hours honing their craft to create viral memes may want to start worrying about artificial-intelligence technology outdoing them in a matter of seconds.

A website called Imgflip, which is used to create customized memes and GIFs, built a meme generator that harnesses machine learning to create new captions at the click of your mouse for 48 of the most popular meme templates. Called This Meme Does Not Exist, this meme generator has gotten renewed attention thanks to a viral tweet from writer and artist K. Thor Jensen posted Tuesday.

The meme generator was created in 2019, but just as a slew of similar sites popped up generating fake faces, fake cats, fake anime characters, fake startups, and even fake Airbnb listings.

This Meme Does Not Exist, as well as the other sites, make these AI-based creations using artificial neural networks that train a computer to learn from a slew of data. In this case, Imgflip's founder Dylan Wenzlau says he drew from around 100 million public meme captions to inform his meme generator.

These "does not exist" websites harness the same kind of technology that's behind deepfakes, the eerily realistic but completely fake depictions that have popped up in recent years. Experts have raised concerns that these sophisticated tools could be weaponized for furthering fake news and hoaxes, or for harassing people online. Deepfake technology has been used to show Scarlett Johansson's face in porn videos, and to doctor a video of Nancy Pelosi that makes her appear to be confused or drunk.

A developer behind one of these websites, ThisAirbnbDoesNotExist.com, explained that he took on the project in order to demonstrate an important point about AI and neural networks: This technology can be used to easily fool people into believing fake and doctored images. 

When this technology applies to memes, the results are of course less nefarious. I played around with the meme generator for about 30 minutes and, while some of the memes don't make much sense, it produced a bunch of meme captions that made me laugh. Some of the results are also completely outlandish, since This Meme Does Not Exist does not filter out profanity or vulgarity.

We've compiled some of our favorites that we've generated or seen. Then head over to Imgflip's meme generator to see what kind of hilarity your can produce yourself.

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Here are some of our favorite AI-generated memes.

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//twitter.com/mims/statuses/1255527034576650243?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
The AI meme generator is the only good thing in the world right now. pic.twitter.com/Q9QfAqRINx

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//twitter.com/mims/statuses/1255521839872389125?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
The AI meme generator knows too much pic.twitter.com/AGkBqa622U

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//twitter.com/mims/statuses/1255504841859891200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
the AI meme generator is very good pic.twitter.com/6qvi4O1gOY

Head over to Imgflip's meme generator to generate your own.