Artificial intelligence painted dinosaurs with flowers.

Probably everyone loves dinosaurs. These gigantic lizards amaze the imagination, and the next find associated with them causes genuine general interest. Flowers also attract attention and delight the eye. They, perhaps, are also loved by everyone (except perhaps for allergy sufferers). But what if we combine these two "loves" into one? Science allows, and not so. Meet: flower dinosaurs drawn by artificial intelligence!

How to tame a "botanosaurus"

Programmer Chris Rodley used artificial intelligence to create images of familiar tyrannosaurs, stegosaurs, triceratops, and other “terrible dinosaurs” using completely non-terrible colors. The method by which this was possible is to “teach” artificial intelligence some visual style so that it can reproduce it. And then give him the task of drawing something using this style.

Photo: Giuseppe Archimboldo / Vertumnus 1590

As a “guide,” Rodley offered artificial intelligence a botanical reference book to learn how to draw with stems, leaves, and flowers. In general, he turned him into Giuseppe Arcimboldo - the famous Italian artist of the 16th century, who painted picturesque portraits of fruits, flowers and vegetables.

Laurels of Arcimboldo

But ordinary portraits, albeit painted in an unusual way, it already was. Therefore, Rodley gave the neural network the task of drawing dinosaurs and posted the result on Twitter. Judging by the thousands of likes and retweets, Internet users really liked the idea.

However, remembering Archimboldo, the programmer taught artificial intelligence and fruit painting, resulting in “fructosaurs” that also appealed to the audience.

Chris Rodley himself notes that in both cases, artificial intelligence solved problems that an ordinary person is not so easy to cope with. “Because there are not many paths connecting flowers and dinosaurs in our brains, I suppose,” he admitted.