Fan art has flourished in the social media age, but not everyone is blessed with the skills to turn their ideas into spectacular — and disturbing — visual creations. The worst offenders hang in galleries of horrors across Reddit and Twitter. Visit them if you dare, but be warned:thesecursedimageswill be forever imprinted on your brain. Fearful of joining these walls of shame, fan artists are turning to a new AIappfor help....
TheResearch Briefis a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea In collaboration with the United States Navy’sUnderwater Archaeology Branch, I taught a computer how to recognize shipwrecks on the ocean floor from scans taken by aircraft and ships on the surface. Thecomputer model we createdis 92% accurate in finding known shipwrecks. The project focused on the coasts of the mainland U.S. and Puerto Rico. It is now ready to be used to find unknown or unmapped shipwrecks....
A team of researchers from Politecnico Di Milan have developed an AI system capable of helping master instrument makers determine what an unmade violin might sound like. Violins have been around since the 16thcentury and, for those who build and play them, not much has changed. Modernluthierstend to apply modest design twists to centuries-old designs because, well, that’s the way it’s done. Per the team’sresearch paper: Of all the characteristics of a violin, those that concern its shape are probably the most important ones, as the violin maker has complete control over them....
This AI is unimpressed by Gillian Anderson’s casting in The Crown The system predicted which stars will shine in their roles — and which will fade into darkness Who’s fit for The Crown? The casting of Gillian Anderson asmilk snatcherMargaret Thatcher may have attracted the most headlines, but some critics have panned her performance. The BBC’s Will Gompertzaccused herof “over-egging her Thatcher impression to such an extent she is close to unwatchable at times....
If you’ve ever dreamed of making songs with Tupac or Jay-Z, an AI tool called Uberduck can take you close to fulfilling your fantasies. Uberduckis one of a range of tools that lets you choose a celebrity voice and then enter text for them to speak. What sets it apart from the others is it can do a pretty impressive job of replicating a rapper’s flow. You can synthesize speech into a “calm” or “intense” Tupac verse, for example, or try an Eminem “freestyle” verse or “pre-Eminem Show” flow....
