Herndon and Dryhurst are frequent collaborators, and xhairymutantx is their work. So they didn’t just prompt an LLM to make the image, they trained the model themselves. And they specifically trained the model on pictures of Herndon (who has distinctive red, braided hair).

I’m personally a really big fan of their work (which I don’t expect everyone to be), but the picture that’s being circulated in articles and apparently sold at auction without context is pretty uninspiring.