Mutating Pictures
 

Systems that create with out creative input fascinate me intensely.
Perhaps some day such systems will be used by computers to design better
computers or anything else for that matter.

Mutating pictures has generated 1,000 random pictures, created in October 2007 and
allowed the public to score them according to how much they look like a face. The
higher the score for a pic the more pictures will be generated like it, but with small
differences.
The result is pictures of faces that have not been drawn by anyone.

It looks like the system favors heavy, masculine faces with facial hair.

HERE is a comparison of 3 random images that where in the image pool at the start
and 3 images that have shapes that have survived the selection process.
(hit refresh for a new sample). Impressive progress considering it has only been running a few days.

HERE you can score pictures your self.

Is it just me thats facinated by this? :D
I wonder how human the faces will look when the project has been running for a few years or
perhaps it will just show the common abstract of a face if there is such a thing.


I shall have to dig out framsticks again one day.

It's not just you. I love this kind of thing as well. I don't think we will ever come up with anything better than our own reproduction but it is very interesting to watch these embryonic attempts at emulating the human capacity for creativity.