A new AI network with the power to create modern art is creating one-off t-shirts online.
Created by Russian data scientist Evgeny Kashin, the StyleGan neural network learnt to create its own modern masterpieces after looking at more than 40,000 images on WikiArt.
Each of the unique artworks are available to download for just 30 seconds on ganarts.ru, before the site refreshes and the images are gone for good.
Kashin, who develops neural networks as part of his role at Russian web giant Yandex, kickstarted the project as an experiment to see whether computers could create modern art to meet human standards.
Pleased with his results, Kashin printed one of the AI-generated images onto a t-shirt — only to be asked by friends if they could do the same.
“On my first attempt, I gave the computer pictures of contemporary art. It didn’t give the network enough to work with, but I managed to train the computer to create small images,” Kashin told The Calvert Journal. “I added more images (from the modern art collection) to reach 40,000 paintings, at which point the network began to learn to create its own pictures.”
All of the AI-images are free to download, although users will have to stump up the costs for printing the image onto a t-shirt of their choice. Kashin also hopes that donations will keep the project online.