After showing the world what artificial intelligence dreams about, Google, in typical Google fashion, opened up the tech and shared it with the world. The DeepDream code, parent to some trippy imagery, has been built out into an app for Mac and now, anyone can coax dreamy pieces of art out of the AI.
When Google opened up DeepDream to the public, Dan Counsell, CEO of Realmac, was intrigued by the code and put his development studio up to the task of packaging it up into a serverless package for average Joes and Janes.
"While we were blown away by the images it produced, we soon found out that if you wanted to set up a server to process images for yourself it really wasn't a trivial task," says Counsell. "So over the past couple of weeks we've put together an easy-to-use yet unbelievably powerful Mac app that allows you to make your own deepdream images."
The Mac app, Deep Dreamer, is now available for the public, but it's still in its beta phase. Realmac wanted to get the software into the hands of the public as soon as possible, said Counsell.
Realmac is selling licenses for use of Deep Dreamer for $14.99 while the app is in beta, but it'll take on $10 to that price once the final version is ready.
"Give Deep Dreamer a photo and watch as horizons get filled with towers and pagodas. Rocks and trees turn into buildings," Counsell says. "Birds, dogs, and insects (aka puppyslugs) start to appear from out of nowhere. Create stunningly beautiful images or terrifying nightmare visions — the choice is yours!"
Google found that its AI could dream when the search engine company tried to reverse its approach to improving the software's ability to recognize images. Google was confused about how its neural networks were learning to classify images, so the company asked AI to generate images — and it did.
"Instead of exactly prescribing which feature [of an image] we want the network to amplify, we can also let the network make that decision," says Google. "In this case, we simply feed the network an arbitrary image or photo and let the network analyze the picture."
