Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/08/25/first-music-video-created-in-p.html
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Some additional examples of style transfer (not using the commercial-off-the-shelf app PRISMA):
http://www.genekogan.com/works/style-transfer.html (including video)
Style Transfer applied to headshots (includes video)
I think most of those apps are based on Lui’s implementation of “A Neural Algorithm of Artistic Style”. The wikipedia article on PRISMA doesn’t mention it.
I’m using a different app - LUCID - on my Android phone.
(my youngest, asleep at his brother’s birthday party - some people, including my wife, find the image scary. I do not.)
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I wonder if Maria is aware of the criticism?
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What criticism?
Her driving skills.
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They must be pretty good, for the band to be telling everybody to emulate her!
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That was created with an app? Just pop in a pic and out pops that?
That and the video are kinda making me be like - fuck it.
I mean, ok, it looks great. It is just disheartening people who struggle, or even naturally excel, at creating such artistic imagery, have had so much of it just basically boiled down to an repeatable algorithm.
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Thank you for that.
I can’t tell you how it feels to stretch my own canvases, gesso them, go out and take my own reference photographs, spend time reframing and refining the composition, grid out an underdrawing, and spend a week or more in painting and several days to let it dry before posting it to the internet, only to have some yahoo use an algorithm and claim skill as an artist in response.
I suppose it’s okay when applied as entertainment and distraction, but I wouldn’t figure people are raising most music videos to the level of fine art in their minds.
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The greatest Go player in the world, Lee Sedol, was beaten by Google’s DeepMind AI. At first, Sedol was so distraught and even embarrassed by the loss that he apologized to his fans. However, he began playing against DeepMind in training matches, and later he would go on to win against other Grandmasters. Playing against DeepMind’s arguably alien thought process and moves pushed Sedol to become an even better player.
In the same vein, once these tools become more widespread, I expect that creative folks will simply springboard off of the extant tools to make even better, even more fascinating and beautiful art.
Of course, there’s also the possibility that we’re all fucked. In that case, I welcome our Hell Kitty Computer Overlords.
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Still a cutey-patootie!
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Bleh - it isn’t the same thing at all. The reason computers are good at chess and the like is that there are only so many moves, and a computer can plot out those moves. It’s all basically math. Go took longer to crack because there are sooo many more possible moves that Chess. Yes I am sure after playing someone better than you, like a computer, then you will become an even better player.
But like for this art thing, if your style was similar to the Prisma app, I have to say, what the fuck is the point?
Sure computer can’t/won’t do something like Duchamp’s urinal. Or if it did it would be pointless because avant garde art usually has some sort of meaning or reasoning behind it. But like the Prism and Lucid app are both making illustrative styles obsolete or pointless. I mean, I guess you can pay someone to do something similar - but if the computer version is just as good - why would you?
And before hand, you could make something and take pride in your ability to do something most other humans can’t do as well. Now
When they start doing what you do just as good as you can or better, maybe you will feel a similar sting.
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Not necessarily. We’re talking AI, not just a massive parallel computing machine. As you mention, there are far too many available moves in Go to compute the whole tree, so the AI has to take intuitive leaps (DeepMind made a move in game three that so threw Sedol, he forfeited the game). We’ve moved past massively parallel computation and into some newer and stranger world.
I play guitar, and I’m certainly aware that computers can far outshine my playing; I like to drive fast, but it won’t be long before that ability is surpassed by Tesla or some other machine of that ilk; I love books, bookmaking, printing by hand, making paper–all things paper…and yet the electronic book is here, and photoshop makes my handiwork look dull and time-consuming by comparison.
Similarly, you might also say that reading Atwood, or Shakespeare, or Chandler, or Gibson, etc. is a disincentive to write, because hey fuck it, I’ll never get to their level, I can’t write anything nearly as inventive or beautiful. They’ve surpassed me in every single way and nobody will ever want to read what I’ve written.
And if you believe that, you’ll certainly succeed in never starting and/or never finishing work/crafts/art.
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For certain, limited definitions of “intuitive” that aren’t.
The computer is not intuitive. It’s not creative. Maybe we don’t really know how a Recursive Neural Net does, but we know how it does. And that is not intuitive, not for any currently known definition of intuitive.
However, a lot of cognitive science has been driven by AI research in the last 60+ years, so that’s something.
I can’t be sussed to get at the Wired article* as their adblocker whine is too much for me, but it’s fascinating to me that we’ve got computers that can take actions so unexpected, clever, advanced, insightful, etc. etc. that we’re edging up into shades of intuition. But we are certainly beyond brute force parallel computing as the mainstay.
But my point stands–that someone or something can do X better than I can does not diminish my production and enjoyment of arts and crafts. That way lies misery.
*They had an in-depth and fascinating article about Sedol’s loss, and I wanted to see how the author put that amazing Game Three move that so stunned Sedol.
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You can program a machine to play music, it is much different to ask it to improvise, stylize, or actually CREATE music. Though I am aware there are some computers than can do that. I’d argue that it has yet to create something on par with humans.
That is completely different. Other artists toil and labor in their craft. Even those with god like talent who make it appear effortless still have to go through the process to create.
This Prisma and other apps has none of this. It is plug and play “art” with no soul. Granted my style doesn’t look like that, but if it did I would be burning down the house right now.
Yes, you’re right, who cares what others are doing, do your own thing. But inevitably one will be unimpressed by your meager skills when shit like this is common place.
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