Thread by @DanielSolis

These Birds Do Not Exist

I trained an AI on public domain bird illustrations from old books. Ornithologists and birders, I'd LOVE it if you were able to still ID some of these weirdos. I'll share some of the "normal" results first, the ones that kinda sorta look like real birds.

Since birds often appear in the context of flowers, leave, and branches, there were often some odd blends of all three. I'm surprised it didn't occur more often, to be honest. It's pretty good at knowing leaves and wings go together. The beaks and heads give it trouble though.

Given the widely varying morphology, I feel ill-equipped for judging the success of the AI's training. I just have a gut sense of what's "plausibly bird." The best I can do is like "Uh... Beak? Yeah, somewhere. Wings? At least 2. Funky plumage? Yep. Plausibly bird. Next!"

See, birders, you could call these "Crested Tweed-Foot" or "Pale-Thighed Webhead" or "Open-Mouth Manwich" and I'd believe you.

Ah yes, the Great Northern Oyster Cracker. The Tawny-Breasted Fishmonger. Lester's Finch. The Forbidden Duck.

The Lesser Bobber
The Rabid Wood-chipper
Henson's Fractal
The Surly Drunkard

Spectacled Ringwraith
Headless Horseman
Eastern Grump
That-Which-Sings

Turner's Hooch
Red-Breasted Eye-Poker
Giant-Headed Bug-Stabber
The False Moffat

Humpbacked Quail
Captain Falcon
The Interrupter
Warped Dangler

Biblically Accurate Grouse
Monochrome Reedwacker
The Worst Shrek
Blue-Caped Buddy

I'm honestly losing track of which fake birds I've shared so far. Please excuse if I posted any duplicates. I have HUNDREDS of these things.

The Flying Nudibranch (shown with chick)
Jerry's Neighbor
Lovely Lady
The Hostile Witness

A selection of fake birds with their fake mates.

The Sharpest Duck
Common Mussel Puncher
Marbled Slab
Hooting Balloon

Common Benchpress
Flagrant Scofflaw
Rusted Rooter
Wooden Spoon and False Wooden Spoon

The Freelance Bartender
The Whole Wheat Breadbox
The Burrowing Evildoer
The Flammable Finch

The Nasty Janet
The Painted Pest
The Dominant Dingus
The Bastard

The Belter
Cloud Strangler
Sailor's Moon
The Flightless Biff

Blue-Breasted Creek
Sudden Turkey
Behold Thine Own Sins Made Manifest Before You
Red Bunt

A brief digression to discuss ghosts. There are no humans in the data set, but LookingGlassAI occasionally insists on trying to make human forms. Some of these are actually quite gothic and haunting, like the first 3 images. However, Img 4 is a typical example of the cursed ones.

LookingGlassAI outputs/inputs in square format. I think it crops inputs to the center before training. Thus, I have a lot of birds that don't quite fit their frame.

The Giant Barker
The Goliath Flounder
The Flecked Behemoth
The Beetle Burglar

That's it for tonight, y'all. Hope you enjoyed this flight of fancy.

CREDIT:
LookingGlassAI 1.1 courtesy of @ai_curio colab.research.google.com/drive/11vdS9dp…

Training images courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library on Flickr: flickr.com/photos/6102175…

Silly names by me.

Unpileated Waterpecker

Illegal Eagle, seen here in its natural environment under witness protection

Texas Flounder
Peasant's Pheasant
Boss Finch
Cluster Duck

Old Beak-Leg
Tony's Hawk
Donedone, the past tense of Dodo
The Flying Mistake