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Google is always trying to learn more about the world around it. To help the search engine giant do so, engineers are developing the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) that attempts to make sense of the world around it. This is the framework on which Google Now on Tap is being built.
Engineers show it thousands of images to try and get it to learn, for example, what a chair looks like. In time the network should realise that an object with four legs, a horizontal surface and a vertical surface is probably a chair and therefore searches should prove more intuitive.
To test how the ANN is progressing, Google’s engineers have been getting it to draw images and the results have been trippy to say the least. The ANN has been seeing dog faces, eyes and slugs in places where there are none, simply because there are shapes that it vaguely recognises. It has also been adding arms into pictures of dumbbells because the images of dumbbells it sees usually include arms. It’s sweet but ever so slightly scary.
Google has named it Deep Dream and opened up the code to developers who have been playing around with it, creating some weird and wonderful images. Here are some of the best. We wouldn’t recommend reading this just before bed, unless you want Salvador Dali to be artistic director of your dreams tonight.
Don’t eat before bed. #spaghetti #deepdream pic.twitter.com/FCyrXUDrN8
— Thorne Brandt (@thornebrandt) July 4, 2015
S-pug-hetti bolognese, anyone?
@thornebrandt
A rare photography of The Puppyslug Nebula from the Hubble Telescope. #deepdream pic.twitter.com/YjslsSlYAo — Devine Lu Linvega (@aliceffekt) July 2, 2015
Devine Lu Linvega spots a rare sighting of the Dog Slug Galaxy
@aliceffekt
#deepdream Dick Cheney. We all knew. pic.twitter.com/cnhCTcG7Gx
— samim (@samim) July 2, 2015
Looks like Deep Dream has already evolved to creating political satire.
@samim
MAD MAX: FURY ROAD #deepdream pic.twitter.com/8P6ZYf5Dab — ゴッドスコーピオン (@GoddoSukoupion) July 4, 2015
As if Mad Max: Fury Road wasn’t visually crazy enough…
@GoddoSukoupion
this is when #deepdream starts to creep me out a bit. a strange creature appears where my friends’ son is looking at pic.twitter.com/uO06GkU4U4
— marpi (@marpi_) July 6, 2015
Oh dear, it’s also seeing demonic visions now.
@marpi_
See how terrifying India looks once it has been run through @Google‘s trippy #DeepDream engine http://t.co/6B96LmhLjo pic.twitter.com/lWDUutHXBn — scroll.in (@scroll_in) July 13, 2015
When cartography goes bad…
@Scroll-in
My garden is infested with puppyslugs, but I caught it on tape. #deepdream kudos to @samim for his animation tool! pic.twitter.com/y5Rxa8zsSt
— Mario Klingemann (@quasimondo) July 7, 2015
Deep Dream turns poppies into puppies
@quasimodo
Starry Night as seen by Google #deepdream pic.twitter.com/nWQbIjvjTw — Christian Alt (@caltf4) July 4, 2015
Making the surreal even less real
@caltf4
birb mountain #deepdream pic.twitter.com/Pk7O8r1afU
— jon snü (@spookybreeze) July 4, 2015
We’re really, really hoping this is Deep Dream and not a terrifying, real-life superbird
@spookybreeze
And finally…
If you’ve seen Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, you’ll already know it’s a pretty messed up film. Well, wait till you see this clip from the movie, recreated through a series of Deep Dream stills.
Roelof Pieters
