Famous Faces – Quizzes created with AI

Are you good at recognizing faces?

Here’s a series of video quizzes that I’ve created where the challenge is to identify famous (and infamous) celebrities, politicians, and historical figures that have been re-imagined into fictional middle-school yearbook photos. Can you guess them all?

It should be obvious (I hope) that none of the children depicted in these quizzes are real.

Like so many others in recent months, I’ve been exploring the intriguing, creative, and yes – very creepy potential of artificial-intelligence-based “text-to-image” art generators such as MidJourney and Stable Diffusion. In case you’re not already familiar with MidJourney, Stable Diffusion, or the glut of other similar text-to-image programs, these are amazing machine-learning technologies that challenge the borders of science fiction by magically creating images from simple text statements called prompts.

These programs enable anyone with a keyboard and an idea to create their own amazing artwork without any substantive knowledge of art, design or computer coding. With a single phrase, you can create incredible imagery of literally anything that is imaginable.

I’ve had the pleasure of experimenting with some of these programs for several months now. While these programs are still in their early days, they can already produce impressive results that (subjectively) rival – or at least mimic some of the best art created by humans. While the results are not always perfect, they are overwhelmingly impressive.

Here’s a very small sample of the thousands of images that I’ve created over the past few months (do note that corrective Photoshop work has been applied to most of them).

Artificial intelligence is beginning to impact almost every aspect of our lives, from how we interact with technology to how we interact with each other. Needless to say, this is both exciting and worrisome at the same time. I could write a long, fear-mongering diatribe on the ethical and legal ramifications of where AI-generated art and artificial intelligence itself are leading us, but you could just hit up Google and read the thousands of articles that already exist about the topic. Just know that, me … I’m a fan and am eagerly looking forward to all of the wonders and worries to come.

Hope you enjoy the quizzes.

 
 
 
 
 
 

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A Dragon’s Tail

As noted in this video’s YouTube description: “In honor of National Appreciate A Dragon Day 2022, I present ‘A Dragon’s Tail [Tale]’ – a glassy, 3D flight of fractal fantasy into the lair of a mythic monster. Enjoy.”

As some of you know, I am recently retired (2020), having spent over 31 years slaying one technical dragon after another for other people.

Now, with a smile, I am living happily-ever-after and I am wishing this same good fortune for you and yours.

 
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Paracosm: another 3D fractal animation

Maya Angelou once said “If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform a million realities.

As the “new normals” and “uncertain times” of our post-2020 quotidian realities have quickly eroded into routine and resentment, I hope that this brief fractal fantasy will bring you a few moments of pleasant escape from the next news cycle.

Enjoy and stay safe.

 
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Biden Transition: a Presidential Morph

As we all look forward to closing out this tumultuous year that is 2020, let us also look forward to the promise of new beginnings and a smooth transition from chaos to unity, from uncertainty to optimism, and from hopeless division to a united march into a brave new future.

Stay safe.

 
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Two Methods of Morphing Donald Trump Into Joe Biden

The title pretty much says it all about this video. Personally, I believe that the second method is the best technical approach. You decide.

Stay safe.

 
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