This is fascinating: bas uterwijk uses AI to create portraits of famous historical figures

[Nevilledog]

https://www.designboom.com/technology/bas-sterwijk-artbreeder-ai-famous-portraits-07-11-2020


Based in amsterdam, bas uterwijk is a freelance photographer that uses GAN (generative adversarial network) to generate hyper-realistic portraits of famous historical figures. trained with thousands of photographs, these deep learning networks are able to generate photographs that look — at least superficially — genuine to the human eye. from michelangelo’s david and napoleon to the statue of liberty, uterwijk uses artificial intelligence to create photography-type images that might give us an idea of how these people really looked like.


Dubbed the A.I. generated portraits, this series of images by bas uterwijk has been created with artbreeder, an AI software that spots common facial features and qualities from the paintings and statues. the program throws different options for uterwijk to pick from, who then continues with the editing of the image. his approach is somehow artistic as he has to decide on hair and eye color for the statues. as for the paintings, it’s a bit easier as he feeds the AI with different images meaning that the more paintings available on the subject, the more information the artist has to complete the job.

*snip*

[SiliconValley_Dem]

1. Jesus Christ!

[Dave in VA]

2. Thanks!

This is cool. Next, give them motion and a voice.

The matrix is just around the corner!

(hehe)

/sarcasm

[LakeArenal]

3. Like this

Statue of David

https://postimg.cc/kDwm7GnR]


Jesus
https://postimg.cc/B8WWm1Ck]


Napoleon
https://postimg.cc/4YHkv1pp]



https://postimg.cc/MvFJjLfW]

[Aristus]

5. I especially love Lady Liberty.

Beautiful, stern, looking ready to kick autocratic tyranny in the ass...

[LakeArenal]

7. Agree. Usually she looks like Elvis

Jesus is kinda handsome as he really was.

[JustAnotherGen]

15. If I was single

I'd be all over J.C.! He's a hottie!

[LakeArenal]

16. That's what I'm saying. 😮😳

Edit to add: HOLY MOLY!!!

[Lars39]

4. George Washington looks like an actor whose name

escapes me. Argh! That’ll bug me for days.

[jayfish]

6. David Warner? (EDITED)

ON EDIT:





Ok, I'm convinced that this "AI" created pic of GW borrowed heavily from David Warner. His grin even bends the same way.

[PatSeg]

8. Yeah, he does

[Lars39]

9. Yes! Thank you!

[hedda_foil]

10. I think he looks remarkably like Prince Charles.

[Lars39]

11. I'm not quite seeing that.

But isn’t genetics fun.

[snort]

12. Holy Cow!

Lady Liberty was Hot!

[csziggy]

13. Queen Elizabeth looks like Helen Mirren!

Van Gogh looks like Tom Goodman-Hill:

[Leith]

14. Wow

That is terrific.

Could he do the Mona Lisa? It would be interesting to see what she looks like with modern hair and clothing.

[chowder66]

18. He did her but he doesn't do modernization as much as just bringing them to life.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CCd1UiMHUwQ/

There was very little to be done and especially so with the girl with the pearl earring. She is relatively unchanged. He credits the artist with the technology he used at the time comparing it to some technology he uses today.

[Volaris]

17. Anybody else think Rembrandt looks like mf-ing Sirius Black from harry potter?

[Wednesdays]

19. FaceApp depicted what famous composers would have looked like if they smiled

In a lot of cases, rather creepy-goofy-fake looking.
But a few of them are pretty good. I especially like how they did Bach, Mahler, and Handel.

https://www.wfmt.com/2017/05/31/composers-smile/amp/

[DavidDvorkin]

20. What did he use to create the Jesus Christ one?

[Nevilledog]

22. Certainly not the blue-eyed, blonde Jesus my parents had hanging.

[DavidDvorkin]

23. But that's really the point

His Jesus Christ image is purely imaginary. It isn't based on anything real, unlike the paintings he used of actual historical figures.

[Nevilledog]

24. Any rendering of Jesus is purely imaginary.

Didn't see anything on his site that explained his choice to include Jesus.

[Talitha]

21. Wait till the Evangelicals find out Jesus wasn't white..