Google made a computer program that makes trippy art

Uh oh. Looks like Google's newest program found Uncle Jerry's stash of LSD and Grateful Dead tapes.

Well, not quite: Google programmed one of its artificial neural networks, usually used for image recognition for its Reverse Image Search, to create these trippy images.

As detailed in a post on Google's Research Blog, the neural networks are programed to recognize certain features in images, which is what makes reverse image searching possible.he software can then be programmed to highlight what it interprets to be the main feature of an image and "amplify" it.

Doing this makes a feedback loop where the network recognizes, to use Google's example, a bird in a picture of clouds, making the clouds more and more like a bird with each successive pass.

Google also gave the networks abstract "noise" images which the networks turned into wild imagery the company is calling "dreams." Yes, apparently now computers can dream.

Some interesting patterns emerged as Google played with this more and more. For example, the network would routinely turn plants into birds and insects and trees into buildings and horizons into towers and pagodas. It would also generate images of dumbbells with arms attached, because apparently most pictures of dumbbells feature an arm lifting them.

Essentially, Google made a software that does the exact same thing you do when you're staring at clouds or at pictures, except it turns those daydreams into wild artwork.