It's now super easy to use Google's hallucinatory 'Deep Dream' code - and the results are terrifying
The internet recently went crazy for "Deep Dream" - a tech experiment by Google engineers capable of creating hallucinatory and terrifying imagery.
It's built using sophisticated AI neural networks that are trained to recognise certain types of images - things like buildings, cars, or dogs. Deep Dream lets the user target this software on any image and tell it to find and enhance whatever concepts it can recognise.
The results are striking and surreal: Dog heads sprout out of people's eyes, buildings morph into buses, trees become ornate arches or geometric shapes.
And it's now incredibly easy to make your own Deep Dream imagery. A web app running the software recently launched called Dreamscope, letting users choose from 20 different filters to transform their photos. And if you're after more customisability, there is Deep Dreamer - a Mac app from Realmac. It offers a free demo but won't transform the entire image unless you cough up $14.99, or $24.99 when it's out of beta.
Just select your photo in whatever app you choose, decide how you want to filter it, and begin.
Here's a photo we ran through Deep Dreamer. It started as a photo of Alexis Tsipras and Angela Merkel; it's hard to say what it is now. You can still see them if you squint.
Next up: Legendary tech VC investor Marc Andreessen.
How about a landscape?
Here's an older Deep Dream picture, based on one of NASA's most famous space images.
The NSA headquarters, meanwhile, turns into a series of buses and pagodas.
It also works on videos. Here's a clip from the already trippy 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.' Make sure you watch in HD.
And last but not least, here's yours truly.
