Scientists have created a new artificial intelligence that can scare humans using AI-generated imagery just in time for Halloween.
Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology call this new AI the "Nightmare Machine." It is formed from a series of algorithms that generate the creepiest, hair-raising images from ordinary photos.
According to MIT Media Lab's Yanardag Delul, this state-of-the-art deep learning algorithm can learn how haunted houses, ghost towns, and dystopian cities can look like, incorporating the viewer's fears and also famous landmarks as well.
With the Nightmare Machine, the AI learns what the viewer thinks is creepy or scary based on their concept of fear via a set of images. Similar to a game, the viewer rates how a certain scary image of a face is scary or not.
Based on these results, the Nightmare Machine can generate an entirely new image that can be perfectly horrifying for the viewer's preference of creepiness.
Google's Deep Dream is known to make constant changes to anthropomorphic and zoomorphic elements in imagery, while MIT researchers transmitted haunted houses, ghost towns and dystopian cities to the Nightmare Machine.
Both AIs may appear similar but using the same Deep Dream method, the Nightmare Machine was able to morph more horrifying elements like bloody roots and veins including darker background colors reminiscent of Halloween, also distorting human faces.