New Google Project Lets You Collaborate On Doodles With A Neural Network (tensorflow.org)

Long-time Slashdot reader Giant Robot writes: Google Brain's latest experiment is a neural network that allows you to collaboratively draw with it inside of your web browser in real-time. The neural network is trained using the drawings collected from an earlier web game called Quick, Draw! released a few months earlier.
"Once you stop doodling, the neural network takes over and attempts to guess the rest of your doodle," explains Google's page about the project, adding "You can take over drawing again and continue where you left off."

Comments

I forsee the future:

[Presence Eternal]

This project will make many headlines, and some people will try to build a business around the api. Google will then close it in three years because only a few hundred thousand people use it regularly.

This must be exciting to somebody

[AlanObject]

OK I tried it and I was not exactly whelmed. Forty years ago I was playing with predictive pattern matching models in an attempt to create a Go player. Although the basic idea worked it took too much expensive computer storage (CDC 7600) to actually play a game on a 9x9 board in real time. (The processor was actually fast enough.)

This exercise is pretty much the same but this software has the benefit of lots of cheap processor cycles and storage space. (I'll spare you the numeric equivalent calculations from the 7600 to modern hardware.) And instead of winning combinations it just guesses stuff with a wide range of possible positive feedback responses.

We will see if Alphabet's infinite money supply can make something out of this. Personally I just don't see much but I have been wrong on the "vision" thing before.

Re:This must be exciting to somebody

[ColdWetDog]

Once you stop doodling, the neural network takes over and attempts to guess the rest of your doodle," explains Google's page about the project...

What could possibly go wrong?

Re:This must be exciting to somebody

[Trax3001BBS]

OK I tried it and I was not exactly whelmed.

On my cell phone all it saw was a bird, no matter the doodle.

Re:This must be exciting to somebody

[Trax3001BBS]

OK I tried it and I was not exactly whelmed.

On my cell phone all it saw was a bird, no matter the doodle.

DUH, on the PC I see it's selectable.

Re:This must be exciting to somebody

[Dracolytch]

Part of what makes this interesting and challenging is how incredibly open the state-space is. With Chess/Go/Checkers/etc, much of the problem comes down to searching a finite state-space. In this case, the possible state-space is so open it's basically indistinguishable from infinitely open.

Re:Drawing in web browser without JavaScript

[Calydor]

Why not just deliver it as a kind of small, installable game? That's ... essentially what this is in the first place.

Re:Drawing in web browser without JavaScript

[locopuyo]

Blocking all javascript will never become commonplace. Does that really need to be explained?

Tried it ...

[CaptainDork]

... boring.

Re:Drawing in web browser without JavaScript

[tepples]

Will such experiments instead need to be wrapped in Electron for Windows, Electron for macOS, Electron for X11/Linux, and whatever is used to package web apps on mobile?

Why not just deliver it as a kind of small, installable game?

Because users of who run a different platform from you would miss out. For example, if you deliver "a kind of small, installable game" as a .dmg image containing a macOS app bundle, people who own a computer made by any company other than Apple won't be able* to run it. And even if you do have the resources to make and test a port of your application to all major platforms, there's no guarantee of a timely response from the app review process of Windows Store, iOS App Store, and Mac App Store.

* Legally. Hackintosh is infringement (Apple v. Psystar), and recommending Hackintosh to the public is inducing infringement (MGM v. Grokster).

OK; that was cool

[lkroll4565]

lol :)