Artist uses AI to create realistic-looking portraits of famous figures including Napoleon and Van Gogh
AN ARTIST has used artificial intelligence to create human-like portraits from statues and paintings of famous faces.
If you’ve ever wondered what the Statue of Liberty or Michelangelo’s David statue would look like as real people then take a look below.
This is the original French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte painting[/caption]
Dutch artist Bas Uterwijk used AI to create the photo-style portraits.
He focused on well-known figures including Vincent Van Gogh and Napoleon Bonaparte.
The deep learning technology enabled him to take a photo of a statue or a painting and turn it into a more human-like face.
The software uses data points to pick up on facial features and photographic qualities.
Here’s one of Van Gogh’s self-portraits from 1889[/caption]
The AI Van Gogh[/caption]
The Statue of Liberty without AI[/caption]
The AI portrait of Lady Liberty[/caption]
The AI is called Artbreeder and can also create human-looking images from scratch.
The right image is the AI version of this portrait of a Fayum Mummy, which dates back to Roman Egypt[/caption]
Vermeer’s famous Girl with a Pearl Earring painting[/caption]
The AI ‘human-like’ version[/caption]
The AI version of Michelangelo’s famous David statue[/caption]
Bas told the Daily Mail: “I try to guide the software to a credible outcome. I think of my work more as artistic interpretations than scientifically or historically accurate.”
The artist added: “I work on many images at the same time, sometimes leaving them for weeks to pick them up later when I have new inspiration or have stumbled on additional source material.”
So far, they’ve worked on 50 to 60 of the AI-generated pictures.
Bas is currently said to be working on a model that could show Anne Frank at an age she never reached.
What is artificial intelligence?
Here’s what you need to know…
- Artificial intelligence, also known as AI, is a type of computer software
- Typically, a computer will do what you tell it to do
- But artificial intelligence simulates the human mind, and can make its own deductions, inferences or decisions
- A simple computer might let you set an alarm to wake you up
- But an AI system might scan your emails, work out that you’ve got a meeting tomorrow, and then set an alarm and plan a journey for you
- AI tech is often “trained” – which means it observes something (potentially even a human) then learns about a task over time
- For instance, an AI system can be fed thousands of photos of human faces, then generate photos of human faces all on its own
- Some experts have raised concerns that humans will eventually lose control of super-intelligent AI
- But the tech world is still divided over whether or not AI tech will eventually kill us all in a Terminator-style apocalypse
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