MIT Just Created a ‘Nightmare Machine.’ It Works.

They've made scaring the sh*t out of people a science

October 24, 2016 9:00 am

We still haven’t confirmed it they dream of electric sheep, but thanks to a new MIT initiative, we now know what androids see in their nightmares.

Just in time for Halloween, MIT’s Media Lab launched a website called the Nightmare Machine that displays computer-generated images which were created using a deep-learning algorithm. The “high perceptual quality” images — which include haunted faces and landmarks made to look like slaughterhouses and ghost towns — are meant to create “a visceral emotion like fear.”

“Can machines learn to scare us? We use state-of-the-art deep learning algorithms to learn what haunted houses, or toxic cities look like,” according to the researchers. “Then, we apply the learnt style to famous landmarks and present you: AI-powered horror all over the world!”

The haunted images aren’t quite as freaky as the new season of Black Mirror, but they’re close.

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