
Nightmare Machine – Horror imagery generated by deep learning - necrodome
http://nightmare.mit.edu/
======
rl3
The initial "deep dreaming" images were far scarier. Nothing compares to
animal faces literally popping out of the woodwork, as if on LSD.

Automated generation of synthetic, photorealistic human faces was mildly
terrifying as well.

Still, this is a cute Halloween project.

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Houshalter
In my opinion, some of the images I've seen NNs produce without trying to be
scary, were scarier than this. There is something really unsettling about
things that look almost real, but aren't quite right.

[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/torch/torch.github.io/mast...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/torch/torch.github.io/master/blog/_posts/images/samples_during_training.png)

~~~
Sharlin
Yeah, those are straight up uncanny valley stuff.

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leonroy
A few days back I see (yet another) article about Stephen Hawking's concerns
for humanity and AI's potential for harm. Today I see we're teaching AI how to
scare us.

Super :)

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lqdc13
I know it can be computationally expensive, but larger images would really
help in this case.

~~~
nightmare_mit
Hi there! We actually have higher-quality versions of these images but didn't
want to overwhelm the main page (and users' bandwidth). But we can put the
larger images to the sub-pages, thanks for the suggestion!

~~~
lqdc13
Thanks for the response.

What about putting up higher res versions when you click on the "thumbnails"?

Like here:
[http://nightmare.mit.edu/#portfolioModal30](http://nightmare.mit.edu/#portfolioModal30)
(can't link directly to the modal)

The computed stylized can be in higher res and only query the server once the
user clicks on the thumbnail. maybe even the original in higher res. I mean
1920x1080+ and maybe some options to downsample to specific res.

Another suggestion is to figure out a way to maximize artifacts. My scariest
experiences with deep learning have been with unnatural mutations of natural
objects.

Something like [https://zo7.github.io/img/2016-09-25-generating-
faces/random...](https://zo7.github.io/img/2016-09-25-generating-
faces/random-2.jpg)

Or some results from this:
[https://github.com/Newmu/dcgan_code](https://github.com/Newmu/dcgan_code)

I'm sure one can take it further.

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dia80
Deep torture, anyone? Gradient descent on stimuli to get what you want out of
adversaries. Kind of scary

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nabla9
On behalf of Saito Game Team, I most humbly apologize.

~~~
confluence
For anyone who doesn't get this, watch Black Mirror.

~~~
nabla9
rot13: V jngpurq gur rcvfbqr, bcrarq UA naq gurer vg jnf. Ba pbaprcghny yriry
vg jnf bar gb bar znccvat orgjrra gur rcvfbqr naq vzcyrzragngvba.

~~~
confluence
The more time goes on, the more confident I become in the notion that I am
currently living in an episode of Black Mirror.

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benbreen
Anyone else think that the haunted faces bear an uncanny resemblance to the
portraits of Francis Bacon? Which, unsurprisingly, are quite nightmarish in
many respects:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=francis+bacon+portraits](https://www.google.com/search?q=francis+bacon+portraits)

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r00fus
It would be a lot more terrifying if it somehow tried to merge the photos
skulls and other traditional horror imagery (the taj mahal photo refection
could easily be a skull).

~~~
nightmare_mit
Great idea! We actually tried the skull style on some pictures before
([https://www.instagram.com/p/BLcU-MzBoEe/?taken-
by=nightmare_...](https://www.instagram.com/p/BLcU-MzBoEe/?taken-
by=nightmare_machine)) and they seem okay. We will try it on buildings and see
how it turns out!

~~~
zakki
My I have a request? My friend, after seeing the images, she asked if it is
possible to make Borobudur becomes a scary place.

Here is the link:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borobudur](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borobudur)

Thanks

~~~
seandougall
Check out deepdreamgenerator.com -- requires a free account, and there are
some usage limits, but it's a lot of fun to play with, and can do similar NN-
based styling of images.

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edem
This reminds me of an episode in the new season of Black Mirror when they
connect a guy to a device which data mines his memories and conjures up
horrors to entertain the guy...SPOILER ALERT!!...and he dies 0.04s after the
connection.

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ddrum001
For me, the grid of faces is much scarier than each on
individually...interesting.

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edem
You might want to check out the site of Chet Zar for more scary faces
(artwork): [http://www.chetzar.com](http://www.chetzar.com)

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TuringNYC
I wonder where the bulk of their training images are from? The website doesn't
seem to indicate it. These remind me of the parallel universe in "Stranger
Things."

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tschellenbach
This is disturbing :) Elon is right, AI is evil!

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max_
I wonder what artchitecture was used, inception, RNN or a GAN?

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srean
It is perhaps ironic that I find the fright-night theme beautiful and
soothing. Would love capturing them for real on camera.

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lucidrains
we may end up generating our own cthulhu

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zk00006
Why? Is there any remote need to generate scary faces? Or is it done just to
have catchy PR title. I hope there is some _real_ motivation to do this line
of research.

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sattoshi
Fun?

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zk00006
Is MIT for fun?

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Gargoyle
Ideally, at least half for fun, yes.

