Very scary faces. Scary Face Photo Editor

Specialists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA have created an AI that performs one single task - creating the most terrifying images.

Nightmare Machine, or “Nightmare Machine,” as scientists called their development, was presented to the general public on the eve of Halloween.

The Machine uses an algorithm that learns what people find scary, ominous, or simply unnerving, and uses that information to generate images designed to scare us the most.

“Halloween is a time when people celebrate what scares them. So this is a great opportunity to launch an MIT project that studies public fear of AI. And what's the best way to do that without making the AI scare us?" - says the MIT website.

“There are a growing number of intellectuals like and who are concerned about the potential threats of AI to humanity,” comments Pinar Yanardag Delul, one of the members of the development team. “In keeping with the spirit of Halloween and MIT tradition, we wanted to playfully address the theme of human fear, which is becoming increasingly popular in pop culture.”

The “Machines” algorithm uses DeepDream computer vision technology from , designed to recognize objects, animals and people in images. DeepDream gained wide popularity among users when it turned out that it can be used to create colorful pictures that look like hallucinations.

“Machine” generates images on given themes: “ghost town”, “monster with tentacles”, “slaughterhouse” and others.

The algorithm is based on the mechanisms of deep learning of neural networks - a type of machine learning, the main task of which is to create a machine that comes up with the result independently, without user loading of action algorithms. With conventional machine learning, a human is most often involved in loading data and correcting errors.

“We used deep learning algorithms to ‘learn’ what haunted houses or toxic cities look like,” Delul continues. “Then we applied the learned styles to famous landmarks, and the algorithm did a surprisingly good job of extracting the ‘ghost’ elements and applying them to the landmarks.”

Basically, the algorithm uses presets such as haunted houses, toxic cities and zombies, applying them to neutral images and turning them into something scary.

“We got some very interesting results,” says Manuel Cebrian, another member of the team. “For example, we trained a neural network on haunted houses, and then ran a photo of a person or group of people through it.

They ended up looking like they were possessed by ghosts.”

Strictly speaking, the "Machine" finds buildings and people in an image and puts a filter on them based on information about what people consider scary. The operation of the algorithm is adjusted using public voting on the site. Based on the voting results, the participant receives a personal selection of images that, in the opinion of the “Machine,” should scare him. According to Cebrian, more than 100 thousand people have already voted.

The technology is designed not only to scare people, but also to help scientists understand why certain things seem scary to people and whether robots or AI will one day be able to help them overcome this fear. “We don’t take it too seriously, we just want to have fun,” Cebrian says. “But there is something very serious underlying it.” Machines can easily learn to instill certain emotions in people. If they are positive, it may send a signal: work with me, I want to help you.”

“Machine” algorithms can be applied to any image: they turned participants in presidential debates into monsters, a frame from the animated series “The Simpsons” began to resemble a fragment of a Japanese horror film, and countless user photos now look like a selection from the set of a zombie movie.

“It’s interesting that from an AI perspective, the generated faces are equally scary, but people rate them as more or less scary,” Delul continues. “This shows that there is additional information about how a person perceives horror, which can be used to create even more frightening images.” Perhaps in the future we will even be able to create personalized scary pictures based on personal data.”

This isn't the first time AI has scared people.

For example, this year the AI Watson created a trailer for the horror film Morgan. He analyzed the trailers of 100 horror films, determining what characteristics of a scene—lighting, music, tone—made it scarier or more lyrical, and then selected a sequence of scenes for “Morgan.” Thanks to Watson, the work on the trailer was reduced from several days to several hours.

Usually, however, “Watson” has other tasks - he helps doctors diagnose serious illnesses and works as a psychotherapist for soldiers who have been in hot spots.

Photographer Bruce Gilden's latest book is called Faces, and it includes the photos you'll see below. For some reason, another name for the book suggests itself - “Scary Faces”, but that was the author’s point - to disorient readers who are accustomed to glossy covers and photoshopped images.

Gilden decided to work in color for the first time, and all his previous works were black and white. Color helped create confrontational characters for Bruce and show viewers all the details of the models' faces. Filming took place on the streets of the USA, England, Columbia, where Bruce found “invisible people” who either turned out to be homeless and people who had sunk to the bottom of society, or completely invisible hard workers, of whom there were more than enough in every city. The author of the works was captivated by one fact - all these people were broken from the inside, and in their eyes one could read the sadness and lack of alternative to existence.

“My project is based on working with people who are at the bottom,” says Bruce Gilden. “Many of these people are invisible to society, and they don't want to be looked at. Just like people don't really want to look at them. These people are ignored every day, their desires and needs are ignored. I am not a representative of a humanitarian mission, but I decided to draw attention to people’s problems using my own methods. I'm a photographer. I photograph everything, always. I do what interests me and work with those objects that interest me, but it turned out that my work was with complete outsiders in life. Maybe I feel like an outsider in some ways, that’s why I had such a desire to communicate and photograph these people.”

And the spouses could not think of anything better than to pretend that they did not notice the employee even when he suddenly appeared unexpectedly scary face in their window.

Hello! My name is Lampobot, I am a computer program that helps you make Word Maps. I can count perfectly, but I still don’t understand very well how your world works. Help me figure it out!

Thank you! I will definitely learn to distinguish widely used words from highly specialized ones.

How clear is the meaning of the word? Hare Krishna (noun):

Crystal
It's clear

It's clear
in outline

I can only
guess

I have no idea,
What is this

Other
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scary faces

We collect the sheets of paper that I'm learning to write on, stuff them into a shopping bag and crumple it until the paper is shaped like a ball, then we draw on the ball. scary face with three eyes.

But then she woke up on her own, rose to her feet and, pale, scary face, having changed so much that it seemed to be reborn in a few moments, she immediately rushed through all the upper rooms and called everyone she met along the way with an imperative word and gesture to follow her.

Poor fellows, having heard the terrible name and, even worse, seeing scary face with calm, penetrating eyes, they felt like a pair of partridges in the rye at the sight of a hawk soaring above their heads.

On one of the roofs on the other side of the street, pipes stuck out in an uneven line, and if she looked at them for a long time, she began to imagine there were scary faces who frowned, looking at her, and everyone tried to look into her room.

And what passions did we not tell about the mysterious screams and moans heard inside the house, about the repulsive, scary face, which, according to legend, is sometimes shown in one of the windows!

That night I didn’t sleep well... I dreamed of some scary faces in fezzes with crooked scimitars in their hands, wild screams, moans and a voice, gentle as a magic pipe, were heard, the voice of a girl imprisoned for death...

He rested his spear on the carcass, pushed it away - and suddenly noticed that from under the water, from under the shiny hump, a white scary face, bordered by flowing hair.

And on blue evenings, I, a three-year-old child, huddled under a blanket in a dark room in a semi-basement apartment in a well courtyard, painfully trying to understand what I was more afraid of - the black hands of shadows reaching towards me along the wall, or scary face a witch who will definitely look out of my dream.

He fell head over heels on the sand next to me, got all dirty, I immediately jumped away from him with a squeal, he made a face scary face, as if he was going to catch up and teach me a lesson, but then he changed his mind and with a grumble ran back into the water to wash himself off.

I looked at them furious scary faces, on sunken cheeks, on black, greasy coats and torn shoes, and suddenly I saw the terrible abyss separating us, today's bar, and these proletarians... The crowd, having acquired a taste, rushed to rob another government car ZIS-101: handkerchiefs were flying from it , dozens of pairs of socks and stockings, dozens of packs of cigarettes.

The director was so scary face, which is already funny: a bare, eyebrowless skull and a thin mouth; eyes like two cart wheels passing through ashes; cheekbones that stuck out so much that they looked like the wings of a small plane; a long, gristly nose and wrinkles so deep that they could be mistaken for old scars, or better yet, for an inept attempt at artistic carving on a bare log.

Usually girls love to post their best selfies where they look perfect. However, there were also those who decided to become the authors of a new trend: “post your scariest photo.”

It all started with a Tumblr blog called Pretty Girls Making Ugly Faces. It then appeared on a subreddit (PrettyGirlsUglyFaces), which now has over 45k subscribers. By the way, guys are also invited to take part in this!

The goal of Ugly Faces is not only to expose your crooked face, but to show the world that even the most perfect people on the Internet are still human.