Inadvertently creating the new subgenre technofear with a nonsensically subversive and unexpected anarchical message, a team of researchers from Rotterdam—the city that had been slated to host the Eurovision Song Contest (previously here, here and here)—cancelled for this iteration but still held on-line—trained a neural network on more than two hundred of the winners and catchiest entrants from over the decades, generating this number that samples from those common elements. Learn more about the teaching methodology at Ars Technica at the link up top.
Tuesday 12 May 2020
blue jeans and bloody tears
Sunday 10 May 2020
torch song
Having encountered this neural network-driven jukebox before in several contexts, we were of course quite impressed but at the same time unable to assay the power the algorithms and machine learning so quite appreciated the developers allowing Janelle Shane (previously) to put a quarter in and demonstrate in an accessible what it’s capable of. If you have ever wanted to know what Baby Shark might have sounded like as performed by the Beatles, then you are in luck or sample the below rendition in the voice and style of Ella Fitzgerald. Much more to explore at AI Weirdness at the link above.
catagories: ๐ถ, ๐ค, ๐ฆ, networking and blogging
Monday 4 May 2020
6x6
artbreeder: a fascinating, generative branching experiment that makes unique, derivative art from participant’s choices—via Things Magazine (a lot more to explore there)
may the fourth be with you: a disco tribute to the first film of the franchise (see previously)
topocom: mapping a better tomorrow – a 1971 US Army short
econowives: the trailer for a 1990 adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale (previously) starring Patricia Quinn, Elizabeth Montgomery, Faye Dunaway and Robert Duvall that’s a strange reverse case of the Mandela Effect (I feel I ought to have known about this yet have no memory of it)—via Messy Nessy Chic
wpa: a look at how the US government funded the arts during the Great Depression
such car: machine learning’s mixed meme metaphors, via Imperica
Sunday 3 May 2020
9x9
horsefly stretches so much time: learning French with these near homonyms that sound like (near) idioms, you know—taon temps tant tends
the lord hardened pharaoh’s heart: as scary as “murder hornets” sound, if they destroy the bees, US agriculture will be in shambles
making muppets: Jim Henson presents a tutorial on creating one’s own puppets in 1969, shortly before the debut of Sesame Street
jukebox: a neural network that’s getting quite good at imitating musical genres and syndicating wholly artificial songs, via Memo of the Air
plastique fantastique: these face shields from Isphere have a certain Avengers’ spy-vibe
do not make me fight you: reminiscent of this montage, stunt choreographer Zoรซ Bell takes on Hollywood
headspace: cranial collages from Edwige Massart and Xavier Wynn
catamaran: this floating shelter in Amsterdam, de Poezenboot, finds new forever homes for our feline friends
www: this was the internet we were promised—why did it take the collapse of civilisation to bring it?
Friday 1 May 2020
selfie2waifu
Via Boing Boing—though we’d recommend maybe not experimenting with it on one’s phone as it seems to deploy harmless though slightly irritating adware making it easy to fumble over an errant click—we find this fun little application that utilises unsupervised generative adversarial networks (previously) to transform one’s mugshots into manga renderings that make nice and unexpectedly abstract avatars. In the glossary of anime fandom, a waifu (wife)/husbando is one’s fictional counterpart so was a little unsure of the choice in naming and I’d categorise myself IRL with the trait of ใขใใฒ—that is ahoge or idiot hair, describing unruly hair going in all directions, but it is just something amusing to experiment with. Give it a try and show off your results.
catagories: ๐ฏ๐ต, ๐ค, networking and blogging
Thursday 16 April 2020
netherstan
Here are some relatively harmless neural network-created fantasy flag mash-ups of the personal ensign of the royal family of Korea combined with the flag of the East African Community or Tonga through the filter of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, though most outcomes are a bit more dicey and some seem absolutely provocative and bent on igniting world war.
If those aren’t enough to incite at least an international incident, one can use the same data-set and vexillogical protocols that the bot draws from (presumably ignorant what national banners can symbolise for some) to create one’s own remixes. Give it a try and share your best unlikely geopolitical union.
Saturday 21 March 2020
lexus-nexus or in this corner
The always brilliant programmer behind AI Weirdness Janelle Shane’s latest foray into machine mentorship begins with a nice and reflective acknowledgement about one primary, force majure why bloggers blog in the first place: to be introduced to process and jargon outside of field of speciality and indulge in learning something new.
This latest episode (see previously) involved in rem jurisdiction—a concept in legal code that imbues an inanimate object status and agency rather than its minders or responsible parties, a type of legal fiction that has resulted in some preposterous sounding suits such as the United States v. One Book Called Ulysses or the United States v. Four Hundred Twenty-Two Casks of Wine. Given that those actual are precedential cases on the books, Shane wondered what her neural network might glean from studying millions of legal proceedings related to seizure and customs violations to create epic courtroom battles. Quite the courtroom artists, Shane has illustrated some of the less abstract ones like Texas v. One Small Dog with a Napkin Near It—quite a surreal enough judgement—but there were others that far exceeded rendering like South Dakota v. an Apparition at a Shoe Store.
catagories: ⚖️, ๐ค, networking and blogging
Thursday 5 March 2020
7x7
goetheanum: a visit to the seat of the General Anthroposophical Society in Dornach in the canton of Solothurn
0107 – b moll: a brilliant short by filmmaker Hiroshi Kondo on cityscapes, commutes and light—via Waxy
pivot point: we are entering the era of Peak Car—see also
gratuitous diacritics: a peek inside the world of extreme heavy metal logos—via Things Magazine
autoritatto: an artist commissions a neural network to generate her a self-portrait out of thousands of selfies
it’s big, it’s heavy, it’s wood: documenting the wildlife traffic over this log bridge in Pennsylvania enters its second year
Saturday 22 February 2020
ะผะฐ́ะบั xั́ะดััะผ
Kazakhstan’s news network Atameken Business has a new pixelated, virtual presenter for its flagship show the Daily Format. Called i-Sanj after his namesake and model Kazakh actor Sanj Madi, he is able to report and banter with other anchors as convincingly as any other talking head.
Maybe such artifices should be branded with a scarlet letter, a V or an H like the hologram Rimmer on Red Dwarf as they become more common and create this duopoly between the pundits, investigative reporters and interviewers that cycle out and retire and the ageless anchors who don’t tire or challenge the producers or censors, since i-Sanj’s inaugural, live segment—see footage on the Calvert Journal at the link above—is indistinguishable from any other newsroom interaction.
Friday 21 February 2020
course of medication
Via Slashdot, we learn that a novel organic chemical compound has been isolated by an artificial intelligence trained on the corpus of literature of pathology and drug-resistance that potentially has powerful implications for continuing to combat infectious disease and make amends for the systematic abuse of antibiotics (over-prescribing, battery livestock, wastewater, etc.) that threatens to revert medical science to that of the Middle Ages.
The compound, named halcine after HAL 9000 by one member of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers, seems to put back in our quiver the means to deal with the most pernicious strains of multi-resistant compounds that make environments that ought to be sterile incubators for germs that have become immune to traditional medicine through over-use and over-exposure. Furthermore, given the expense that new drugs trials entail—making their development a pricy trade-off despite the benefit of lives saved, being able to find leads to follow from computer models may usher the best contenders to the laboratory first.
7x7
en nat pรฅ bloksbjerg: the incredible art work of Dutch illustrator Kay Nielsen—see previously, whom contributed to Fantasia but Disney let go
band camp: an overlooked and not unlistenable resource: Can This Even Be Called Music?—via Kicks Condor
theire soe admirable herbe: English colonist discover what the natives have been smoking in seventeenth century India
winter stations: interactive installations of Toronto’s beach to encourage outdoor play in the cold months
cabin-crew: the JFK retro TWA terminal hotel (previously) turns the body of a vintage jet into a bar and museum space
salon d’automne: a neural network trained on cubist art produces an infinite stream of paintings, via Waxy
a parade of earthly delights: scenes from recent annual aquatic celebrations of Jheronimus Bosch (previously) held on the waters of ‘s-Herogenbosch—the next event begins in mid-June
Friday 14 February 2020
mouthy hamster
Our programmer friend, author and AI-minder Janelle Shane (see previously) took a different approach to the holiday medium that arguably machine-learning could most easily access and influence—the sadly unavailable chalky candy-heart—explicitly not attempting to have her neural network try to caption them but instead only seeding the task with a list of the original (and impressively varied) three-hundred and sixty-six messages to one’s sweetheart and no other context. Here are just some of the results but be sure to visit the links above to see more and learn about the methodologies behind machine learning.
Saturday 1 February 2020
bennifer
Nag on the Lake introduces us to the sometimes frightening canny realm of synthetic celebrities. Each is the product of a generative adversarial network (see previously) and display their dominant and recessive influences. While these chimeric twins are well-matched, most turn out a bit monstrous with uncompromising hairlines though their pre-combination traits show through. The offspring of Jeff Bezos and Eminem isn’t awful and neither is the Emmanuel-Macron-Sandra-Bullock hybrid. Who are your favourites? Much more to explore at the links above.
Friday 24 January 2020
meet the neons
Samsung’s STAR Labs have created virtual beings, imbued with artificial and adversarial intelligence that behave convincingly like human beings and are poised to get even better once escaping the laboratory and confines of a consumer electronics exposition.
What do you think? An extension of the electronic personal assistant, a spokesperson (which may be a neon himself and does not realise it) explained that bots are being developed for a future wherein “humans are human and machines more humane” with the new companion especially suited for roles as bank tellers, news anchors, health care providers, financial consultants and lawyers.
catagories: ๐ก, ๐ญ, ๐ค, Blade Runner, labour
Wednesday 22 January 2020
6x6
kรณrsafn: Bjรถrk collaborates with an technology company to produce background music that changes with the weather and seasons
de arte gymnastica: Ask the Past prescribes an exercise regimen from a 1560 volume
8½: a centenary celebration of filmmaker Federico Fellini
langmuir waves: a sonic sample of the solar winds
blogoversary: Boing Boing enters its third decade for the second time (see also about its earlier incarnation)
godunov, badenov: the Russian succession crisis and the curious case of the false Dmitris
how to teach your cat to do tricks: uncovering the art studio behind WikiHow‘s signature illustrations, via Super Punch
Saturday 4 January 2020
๐ค๐
catagories: ๐, ๐ค, environment
Wednesday 25 December 2019
hark the herald ai’s carol
Reprising a 2017 experiment this time with more powerful machines, Janelle Shane (previously) had her neural network try its hand at composing Christmas songs, drawing from a dataset of two hundred and forty carols compiled by the Times of London, and the output really underscores how profoundly strange that the holiday with its strange fossilised language would be for outsiders.
With verses for Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer like “Its heart was full of sugar / And the most prized food item was its head” and “For sinful men such a deity doth appear / And wink and nod in reply.” If you subscribe to AI Weirdness at the link above, you can sign up to receive the full text of these and other experiments—which as an occupational hazard feature an inordinate amount of cusses and references to gun-violence. Grandma got run over by a reindeer.
The wretched world is run by ox and ass
The wretched world is run by ox and ass,
And in vain build I.
Saturday 21 December 2019
7x7
fintech: the Nordic country put together an artificial intelligence crash-course for its citizens and now is making the curriculum available to all—via Kottke
chirogram: a deaf student at the University of Life Sciences at Dundee, seeing a deficit in communication, invents one hundred new signs to quickly articulate complex scientific concepts—via Dave Log
the decade in content: Vanity Fair reviews the trends, memes and moments that defined aspects of the past ten years
dj earworm: the decade encapsulated (previously—albeit on a smaller scale) in a mashup of one hundred songs
klaviatur: a demonstration of the six-plus-six, four row Jankรณ keyboard—which allowed players to cover ranges impossible by a single performer on a traditional piano
headspace: the framework of current privacy protection advocacy and laws is unprepared to safeguard us from the coming mind-reading technologies
Thursday 19 December 2019
5-7-5
The cynical, suspicious part of me that prone to insidious conspiracy and thoughts that immediately retreat to somewhere dark in every fun application that triangulates one’s whereabouts is just a cutely disguised ploy to harvest one’s data and commodify it is often vanquished (possibly an instinct that should be overcome) as it was with this non-proprietary mapping service that generates haikus based on the address (or coordinates if you choose to disclose them) we are referred to by Nag on the Lake and Maps Mania.
The poetry is a bit hit-or-miss but the element of serendipity is fun and keeps ones poking around. Nearby, I especially liked “The warm belly of the bus / High up in the trees / Branches of the tree” discovered while zeroing in on my actual spot.
Tuesday 19 November 2019
8x8
mudras: nifty exercises for your hands and wrists
holy rollers: A reformed, formerly anti-LGBTQ fast food franchise announces it will make amends
konmari: life style guru and evangelist of de-cluttering now wants to fill that tchotchke-shaped void in your soul
between two ferns: eight-two famous and infamous interviews animated
anti-archiv: a massive cache of photographs and home movies from the DDR, via Things magazine
discerning audiences: light entertainment from 1972
self-policing: a browser extension uses machine learning to highlight AI generated content, via Waxy
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐, ๐ณ️๐, ๐, ๐ท, ๐บ, ๐ค, religion, sport and games