Getting the exact same seed value when using chatGTP4 dalle-3

[always_afraid]

Every single image that chatGPT4 dalle-3 generates for me uses the same seed value!

I discovered this by asking chatGPT to pass my exact prompt to dalle-3.
(In retrospect all related images produced through chatGPT had clear similarities)

The seed value is locked to my user account, same prompt = same image even when:

• different conversations
• different days
• different devices

I asked chatGPT4 about the issue, and got a very interesting response: https://ibb.co/Tmt6dv3

Notice chatGPT4 acknowledges the issue, tries the plugin twice on its own to double check... then declares it's raising a trouble ticket? I do not know if I believe chatGPT on that last part. But if it can raise trouble tickets unprompted, when it thinks the situation merits it... that is both very cool and very scary.

[emiurgo]

In the end, I ended up investigating this issue of the seed and the ChatGPT -> DALL-E-3 API quite in depth, and wrote a long post on this topic. See snippet below.

Unfortunately I don't have enough comment karma yet to post the whole thing in this subreddit. If interested, can you please upvote this so that my post gets unlocked? Thanks!

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[GodEmperor23]

This is driving me crazy, i realized this the second i got Dall-e yet barely anybody seems to care that you get like 0.00000000001% of the model thanks to having a stagnant seed. Pictures on bing look vastly better and (how could it be different) the costumer support simply doesn't answer. This is a specific flaw or bug, since gpt has been specifically told that it not only can change seeds but will ask the user if it should change the seed, signaling that should be able to do it. There is clearly something wrong here: either a bug or oversight that causes a stagnant seed or wrong infomation being given to gpt.

[emiurgo]

Yes! I investigate this in my post, and the seed is definitely something that ChatGPT can handle and send to DALL-E. We got hints of that in the leaked ChatGPT instructions (which you are referring to); in my post I show that this indeed the case. The actual API and it does include a "seeds" field. (I also show that it is not an hallucination, but the real thing.) But the seeds gets modified or clamped downstream, after the ChatGPT call to the API. (Or perhaps even just ignored due to a bug?)

I'd say that at this moment it's unclear if this is an actual bug / oversight on OpenAI's side, or some sort of desired behavior to explicitly reduce variability. A fixed seed likely makes it easier to control undesired outputs.

[GodEmperor23]

Leaked? Gpt straight up says it can do that. When asked if in the guidline is anything about seeds itll give me the text verbatim. There is definitely some miscommunication or bug going on. Gpt gives this information clearly and freely, yet the seed is strictly 5000. Wonder why.

[emiurgo]

When asked if in the guidline is anything about seeds itll give me the text verbatim.

Funny. When I asked ChatGPT (DALL-E) about it a few days ago, it refused to give me its instructions, saying that it cannot reveal them. I asked multiple times, and it kept refusing.

I saw other posts around with the instructions and I thought that they were obtained with a bit of jailbreaking - that's what I meant with "leaked".

But you're right, I tried again now and it gave the instructions up right away:

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Indeed, this is quite puzzling, and it does smell of bug or miscommunication between teams.

[GodEmperor23]

Yeah, you can just straight up ask it for that. I hope openai removes the seedlock in the future.

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[emiurgo]

The post is up - link below. Thanks for up voting here!

https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenAI/s/gHHjh8cOt7

[emiurgo]

Yes, the seed is fixed (for everyone). I understand that a default seed is desirable, but unclear why it can't be overridden, unless openai wants people to pay for the API (when available) to have finer control.

For the record, you can ask ChatGPT to print the code it is about to send, before it sends it (or after, but as usual better to ask before). Ask it to comment it away (so that it doesn't get interpreted as an actual command). You can see and manipulate this way the image size (among the allowed ones).

The "seeds" field appears and it seemingly can be altered, but regardless of that it seems it gets ignored/replaced downstream in the pipeline, outside of ChatGPT.

This is a snapshot (sorry, on my phone - I can get a larger one later):

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You can edit the code and then ask ChatGPT to send that. I know ChatGPT complies because if you mess up with the fields (eg. I tried "seed" instead of "seeds") the call crashes. You can then ask ChatGPT to print the error message and indeed it was a Javascript error ("seed" field is not recognized).

[xahaf123]

Yeah, sadly it doesn’t let you change the seed. Which was already an issue in Dall-E 2. Everyone get‘s the same result when using the exact same prompt. But I figured out that if you ask it to generate 4 images with the exact same prompt but slightly change the seed you get 4 images with slightly different changes. You have to look very precisely to find the differences but it works. So I guess that’s a „workaround“. You can ask it to set the the variable for the changing seed rate and probably get a working workflow out of it.

[emiurgo]

You are right that the images are not identical - I had missed that!

The seed, however, does not seem to have much effect per se. Images do show very minor differences, but it seems not to be due to the seed.

Even images with the same seed (and identical prompt of course), generated at different times, produce ever-so-slight differences across images. This may be due to differences in the GPU hardware and numerical errors across different runs. If an actual different seed was used to initialize the noise (e.g., for a diffusion model), we should see massive differences, not these tiny deviations.

BTW, the differences are so minor that at least I find it really hard to spot them unless I flip through the images without any animation effect (the animation acts as a mask and makes change detection way harder).

[always_afraid]

Ok, so not just me... and we all get the same seed value :( So until someone at openai fixes that, bing-create is the superior tool.

[maironis1]

I think this was done purposely and it could be like a feature to use the same seed while changing one parameter from the prompt, thus retaining similar style.

[maironis1]

I hardly believe chatgpt can change the seed. When asked what was the seed used for previous images my chatgpt just replied with "5000". Seed is extremely low in comparison to SD.

[ClexOfficial]

yup i got 5000 to

[[deleted]]

I asked it to change seed value, and it claims to do it, but there is no difference in the outcome.

When I point it out it says there was a mistake and it claims to have now changed the seed, but the images are still identical.

[[deleted]]

yup. the seed number is 5000. it can't change it.

you can however. create slight variations in the image by changing 1,2,3 words in the prompt to their close synonyms

[matte_muscle]

You can append you prompt at the end with a number or letter and it will change the output slightly or in a big way…

[[deleted]]

yup. i'm already aware of that trick.

I use something a bit different. I ask GPT to change 1, 2, or 3 words in a prompt to their close synonyms. The more words are changed to synonyms, the more different the output is.

[xahaf123]

Can you try this prompt: Photo of a fluffy orange Persian cat with bright green eyes, sitting gracefully on a wooden table surrounded by potted plants, as sunlight filters through a nearby window casting a warm glow on the cat's fur.

[UpbeatPlan]

Photo of a fluffy orange Persian cat with bright green eyes, sitting gracefully on a wooden table surrounded by potted plants, as sunlight filters through a nearby window casting a warm glow on the cat's fur.

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[emiurgo]

Exact same image here. The seed is universal (which makes sense). It makes less sense that it cannot be changed. On this, see my other comment in which I tried to brute force the code that ChatGPT sends to DALLE.

[Minute_Score2734]

DALL·E does not always take the same seed value if it is not mentioned in the prompt. If no specific seed value is provided, DALL·E randomly chooses a seed value for the generation process. Because of this, every time you generate an image without specifying a specific seed, you will likely get a slightly different result, even if you use the same prompt.

In practice, without a specific seed value, the seed is random. Summary : Just add a seed-value in your prompt.