What is the opposite of guacamole?
Last week I attempted to illustrate some neural net-generated racehorses by turning to another neural net - this time, one that generates images, called BigGAN.
Using Joel Simonās ganbreeder.app interface, Iām able to see what BigGAN can generate for any of ~1000 categories of objects. Not finding a category forĀ āracehorseā, I decided to use the nearest thing I could find,Ā āhorse cartā. Which, um.
But ganbreeder makes it easy to combine multiple categories - ifĀ āhorse cartā is one point in space andĀ āgreat grey owlā is another point in space, when you travel on a straight line between them, the horse carts gradually grow feathers and owl faces, ending in something that sort of resembles an owl.
[left: 100% horse cart. middle: 50% horse cart, 50% owl. right: 100% grey owl]
Ganbreeder also allows you to travel AWAY from a destination. So I can start at āhorse cartā and then try to remove some of the cartness by deliberately traveling in the exact opposite direction of āshopping cartā. Sure enough, the image morphs into a furry four-legged creature with no more sign of wheels.
[left: 100% horse cart. right: 75% horse cart and -75% shopping cart. bottom: tried to make the face less doglike by also subtracting some dog. success??]
What this also means is that I can take any category of thing and generate its opposite. For example, I can set āguacamoleā to -100%, inverting every component that makes it up. Itās kind of like burrowing directly through the earthās core to find out whatās on the exact opposite side of the planet.
Hereās whatās opposite of guacamole: this tower, this mysterious cloaked figure.
this thing, I regret to inform you, is the opposite ofĀ ājeansā
Now, this is just a single neural netās strange idea of what an opposite is, basicallyĀ ādo exactly the opposite of what you would do to generate a picture of jeansā. If they retrained the neural net on the same data, random fluctuations in the training process might make the opposites look a lot different. But often the opposites have a sort of logic to them. The opposite of tiny indoor things tend to be large landscapes. The opposite of organic things tend to be geometric ones.Ā
Hereās the opposite ofĀ āstingrayā:
The opposite ofĀ ābirdhouseā is, rather pleasingly, some kind of cat.
The opposite ofĀ ādrilling platformā is this leafy green creature.
And the opposite ofĀ āeggnogā is a terrifying sight to behold.
You can make your own abominations and opposites with ganbreeder.app!
Bonus content: more weird opposites!
snowghoul
prguitarman
discoholicmusic
pixelskylines
baratheonpilled
germansingergirl
jacobvanloon
2087
kaledo-art
