Welcome to JOE’s weekly TechXplanation, where we take the most talked about technology and give you the knowledge.
This week we’ll be looking at Google’s “inceptionism” algorithm, which was made available to coders and computer programmers across the world last week.
A rare photography of The Puppyslug Nebula from the Hubble Telescope.#deepdream pic.twitter.com/YjslsSlYAo
— Devine Lu Linvega (@neauoire) July 2, 2015
So what is it?
Good question. Google has developed an ‘artificial neural network’. That may sound like gibberish, but it’s purpose is just to identify things like buildings or animals or trees in photographs.
What Google have done is shown pictures to the neural network and asked it to emphasise the things it recognises, like a goat. Google then took the emphasised image and showed it to the programme again, over and over, until it made enough changes to the image that it was almost unrecognisable from the original.
Having trouble picturing what we mean? Watch what happens when someone runs a scene from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas through the neural network.
Why is it in the news?
Because it’s really, really weird. Effectively what’s happening is that computers are hallucinating, and seeing things in images that aren’t really there. Then they’re bringing those bizarre and mesmeric images to life.
Check it out.
walking in sand #deepdream pic.twitter.com/N4ynU46Mkh
— Kyle McDonald (@kcimc) July 3, 2015
Cost?
Free! Right now, anyone can ‘deepdream’ their own image here, but the service is so popular that it can take days for the website to turn your image into a computer’s hallucination.
What’s the alternative?
Hallucinogenic drugs.
https://twitter.com/One_30_One/status/616750933016485890
Oh dear.
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