
The Wolfram Language Image Identification Project - Kipper100
https://www.imageidentify.com/
======
cromwellian
I hate to be negative, but I found the announcement post suspiciously devoid
of any acknowledgement of the huge work that has been done in this field over
the last few years. Wolfram's post seems to be written in the tone as if he's
suddenly discovered a way to do this, when it's old hat. No mention of the
results and ILSVRC (Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge) contests held
every year. Or ImageNet and all of the associated projects.

~~~
seanp2k2
Here's a [biased] bit on Wolfram, the person:
[http://chem.tufts.edu/science/Shermer/E-Skeptic/SkepticsOnWo...](http://chem.tufts.edu/science/Shermer/E-Skeptic/SkepticsOnWolfram.html)

TL;DR [quote] Although it is clear that Wolfram is no crank, not someone
skeptics would label a pseudoscientist, skeptics will notice that, despite his
flawless credentials, staggering intelligence, and depth of knowledge, Wolfram
possesses many attributes of a pseudoscientist: (1) he makes grandiose claims,
(2) works in isolation, (3) did not go through the normal peer-review process,
(4) published his own book, (5) does not adequately acknowledge his
predecessors, and (6) rejects a well-established theory of at least one famous
scientist. [/quote]

~~~
jgalt212
While not applicable for this post, I really like: > (5) does not adequately
acknowledge his predecessors

as a huge indicator of PR-driven news article rather than a news-driven news
article.

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ComputerGuru
You know the old saying "can't see the forest for the trees?" [1] [2]

1:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=can%27t+see+the+forest+for+t...](https://www.google.com/search?q=can%27t+see+the+forest+for+the+trees)

2:
[https://www.imageidentify.com/result/1whslg106cfcp](https://www.imageidentify.com/result/1whslg106cfcp)

~~~
Flimm
It supposed to identify one item, so the fact that it got "tree" seems to be a
correct response to me.

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stevenh
Everything I uploaded resulted in a ridiculously inaccurate response.

Here is a much better example of this type of classification engine:
[http://www.clarifai.com/#demo](http://www.clarifai.com/#demo)

~~~
Geekette
Just tried it out with the same pics I used for Wolfram. For one of the
previously wrongly identified pics, Clarifai produced better results. For
another, it miscategorized it with the same tags as Wolfram.

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pdevr
I tried with the sample pictures on my computer, and it recognized all of them
- some with uncanny accuracy.

I uploaded some photos which I took recently. It recognized them to fairly
well.

Changing the orientation of an image, even if the orientation is provided in
the metadata, seems to trip it up though.

Overall, amazing. Considering that it is from the Wolfram stable, not much of
a surprise!

~~~
taliesinb
Yup, we're aware of and working on the orientation issue! Thanks for trying
it!

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jameshart
Impressed to see that it doesn't necessarily get all the sample images
provided on the site right - obviously would be tempting in a tool like this
to pick images there that are guaranteed to be correct, but for example the
image of a bicycle wheel disc brake gets classified as a 'bicycle chain', and
the typewriter as a 'computer keyboard'. Good to demonstrate the failure
modes, rather than attempt to project complete infallibility.

I also like the secondary classification it does of people, looking for a
'notable person' match.

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tormeh
Inserting absurd images seem to throw it off:
[https://cdn.psychologytoday.com/sites/default/files/blogs/39...](https://cdn.psychologytoday.com/sites/default/files/blogs/3994/2011/05/64577-54968.jpg)

I mean, how could I not try this?

~~~
taliesinb
[https://www.imageidentify.com/result/1f5oz7ogn6g8g](https://www.imageidentify.com/result/1f5oz7ogn6g8g)

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noreasonw
R, Python and open software applications are going to be a very fierce
contender in machine learning, image recognition, data mining and statistics.
I wonder if close source is going to compete with the 5000 packages available
in R and in the future more and more people are going to be able to improve on
the shoulder of giants.

~~~
tormeh
Well, the philosophy for the Wolfram language is different. Basically, their
approach seems to be "put everything imaginable in the standard library",
which is kinda awesome, actually.

Should be more coherent and discoverable.

~~~
rhodin
Discoverability of functionality in the system, and common ways to put things
together, is an important topic. We (I'm an employee) are constantly improving
our documentation system to make it easier to see what's there. With over a
hundred thousand examples there's a lot of ground covered but more initiatives
in this area are rolling out.

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slavik81
I find it pretty cool to see sensible failures. I gave it a Charizard, and if
you squint you can sort of see why it came up with jack-o'-lantern.

[https://www.imageidentify.com/result/12gdvqqz1w0vd](https://www.imageidentify.com/result/12gdvqqz1w0vd)

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taliesinb
Some of the underlying details (mostly non-technical):
[https://www.imageidentify.com/about/how-it-
works](https://www.imageidentify.com/about/how-it-works)

The function in the Wolfram Language is called ImageIdentify (obviously):
[http://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/ImageIdentify.html](http://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/ImageIdentify.html)

A blogpost from Stephen Wolfram about this site and related topics:
[http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2015/05/wolfram-language-
arti...](http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2015/05/wolfram-language-artificial-
intelligence-the-image-identification-project/)

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ridgeguy
Interesting.

I gave it a pic of me, and it returned "person" \- good.

I gave it a pic of my wife at a White House dinner, and it returned
"construction" \- a definite "What the heck?". I suppose this could have been
a subtle political comment, but whoosh, I don't get it...

I gave it a pic I took of an F22 in a 9g turn (in afterburner) and it returned
"afterburner" \- surprised me that it ID'ed the aircraft's propulsion regime
rather than calling it an aircraft, but nonetheless impressive. How do they
get it to key on Mach diamonds?

Bookmarked. I'll check in occasionally to see how it's doing in its ascent to
sentience.

~~~
icanhackit
_I 'll check in occasionally to see how it's doing in its ascent to
sentience._

Turing Test: Pair it up with a chat-bot algorithm on Skype and see if it can
start conversations with random users based on their home decor. "Nice red
leather couch you've got there."

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Geekette
Interesting. Tried out a few pics from my desktop and it got some right and a
couple wrong but I could see why in one case (ottoman cushions identified as
"containers", probably based on shape).

It would be really cool to see a refined use case for artifacts, i.e. detailed
scanning and identification of sculpture by style and origin.

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pmelendez
It seems like it doesn't work with illustrations (i.e cartoons, logos, etc).
Also, lights seems to confuse the model; for instance, a picture of my son
with candle on a birthday cake was identified as "instrumentation" and a
picture of me with a light source in the back was tagged as light bulb.

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noreasonw
I have tried with two images, one a book in Spanish entitle: Lo mejor de
"Fantasy & Science Fiction", another with my watch. In the first one it
classified as a machine or something like that, the second is a device.
Nothing fancy and very far from what they say in the blog.

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a1b2c3
Help Mr. Wolfram train his engine for free.

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vlasev
Well, it's not ENTIRELY wrong
[https://www.imageidentify.com/result/0j627xm37r6yl](https://www.imageidentify.com/result/0j627xm37r6yl)

~~~
treeform
I used the same image and it did not guess it at all. It said "oblate"...

~~~
vlasev
Interesting. Did you use the original high-res image?

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bane
Really cool, I tried with a few photos and it did surprisingly well. I
provided training info on the ones it got wrong, hopefully it keeps getting
better.

Very impressive and I don't mind helping train it.

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wlievens
A photo of my wife and toddler daughter yields "instrumentation". I'm not sure
what to think about that.

~~~
wyldfire
An image I found of a heartbleed logo with the word "heartbleed" superimposed
indicated the same response -- "instrumentation."

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ahamino
It couldn't identify smoke [https://t.co/jlK6yswXGT](https://t.co/jlK6yswXGT)

~~~
voltagex_
It got Bill Gates though
-[https://www.imageidentify.com/result/06eboar58u4rw](https://www.imageidentify.com/result/06eboar58u4rw)

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bobwaycott
needs to improve before i'll be asking it to automatically order my dessert
...

[https://www.imageidentify.com/result/0fmiowetw4u07](https://www.imageidentify.com/result/0fmiowetw4u07)

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fernly
Gave it a pic of tip-off of a basketball game. It offered "Instrumentation".

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Geep
Whoa that's awesome! NKS!

