Machine learning produces photorealistic portraits of Roman emperors.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smar...orealistic-portraits-roman-emperors-180975558

Sneak peak:



That was cool enough, but the link to the main project blew me away:

https://voshart.com/ROMAN-EMPEROR-PROJECT

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

I think everyone probably heard the clanging sound as my jaw hit the floor....
what fascinating stuff....

 

Very cool! Thanks for posting this.

 

Stops before Diocletian and the end of "realistic" portrayals. Cool.

 

Jeeze, guys. I don't know but darned if it does not seem that Vespasian, my favorite emperor, (my middle name is Flavian) looks too much like US president, Lyndon B. Johnson, who is NOT one of my favorite presidents. I may have to do some reexamination and go with Titus instead.

 

Augustus looks like Daniel Craig.

 

Lol, I thought the same thing.

 

I didn't envision Gordian I and II looking like this. But Gordian III looks pretty close to his coin portraits and surviving busts...

 

Great tool thank you for the post. Be safe

 

Alan DeShazo (linguistic polymath and numismatist extraordinaire) bounced this link off me the other day. While the premise is cool, I have to reserve judgment on the results. ...For instance, at risk of near-tautology, why are the most convincing recreations the ones that most closely resemble coin portraits? ...Never mind resort to default skin tones. It's a lot like the continuing state of (commercial) genetic research. The pool of the available data is necessarily limited, and --no accident-- the technology is still in its infancy. With that kind of convergence, interpretive licence has an insidious way of getting its foot in the door.

 

Sorry to be a contrarian but I don't like those gimmicky portraits at all! Way too slick and idealized for me. (Yes, I recognize that most of the major statue sources are idealized to begin with.) How about factoring in some literary sources like Caligula's acne and receding hairline? Many of those guys had bad skin and teeth. Didn't Tiberius have ulcerations on his face? It's no wonder folks here are comparing some of these "perfect portraits" to famous actors. Just a outlier's opinion...too fancy for me.

 

This was discussed last month in this thread: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/portraits-of-emperors.363950/

 

All jesting aside, these images help to remind us that the emperors, good, bad and indifferent, were once mortals in the flesh, not unlike us in many ways.

 

Good point.

 

I'm a software engineer for past 10 years and when I tried to learn how machine learning works, it got me so puzzled that I gave up. Luckily web developer is still in high demand and plan to stay in it and move away as far as I can from machine learning. I should say I hate machine learning!