Daniel Solis by Night Profile picture
Jan 30, 2022 25 tweets 20 min read Read on X
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

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More from @DanielSolis

Mar 28, 2022
These New Yorker Cartoons Do Not Exist

I trained LookingGlassAI on 100+ New Yorker Magazine comic panels. Enjoy the results in this thread.
I like how cubist some of these cartoons turned out. Like those one-line drawing exercises.
Just wry observations about life in the Glizglorb Hivemind.
Read 5 tweets
Jan 29, 2022
In this thread: I trained an AI on interior design photos. None of these photos had any humans. And yet these ghosts haunt my outputs.
A small percentage of the outputs were dark, spooky living rooms. AI seems to misunderstand that some rooms are dark because it's night while others just have dark walls. The result is a liminal lighting from the nether zone.
A poster is a glossy rectangle on a wall.
A window is also glossy rectangle on a wall.
Read 8 tweets
Sep 3, 2021
We're in Rochester!
Image
Image
That's... A lot of historical archives. This might take a minute. Image
My god. Sid Sackson's hand drawn diagrams for Playing Cards Around The World.


Image
Image
Image
Image
Read 23 tweets
Nov 1, 2020
Thread: Common instances of passive voice in rules text that can be clearer with more direct voice.

But first: Why do we so often write rules in passive voice? Outlining the "laws" of our game feels like a very formal position with an of aloof authority. Avoid that voice.
"THE PLAYER"

Question any instance of "the player" in a sentence. If you are addressing one player, address them directly in the first sentence of the paragraph and use "you" thereafter.

"If you are the first player, you may X, Y, then Z. If you X, see next page."
"HAVE/HAD/HAS/'D/"

Examine any of these words or contractions. There is usually a more succinct way of phrasing that sentence in the present tense and direct address.

"The player who has just moved must..."
vs.
"After you move, you must..."
Read 29 tweets

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