Image: Tumblr/Lauren “Iguanamouth” Dawson
While neural networks are being used for the rapid development of artificial intelligence, it turns out it can also be used to do something fun. Like creating new Pokémon.
Research scientist Janelle Shane recently posted on her personal blog regarding her attempts at teaching a neural network to randomly generate Pokémon names and abilities.
“I decided to train the neural network to randomly generate Pokemon names and abilities based on this list as a training set – and found that it was good at generating Pokemon. Annoyingly good at it…,” said Shane.
Image: Janelle Shane blog post
She posted a short list of sample Pokémon that the neural network generated. With just text, it’s hard to imagine how these Pokémon look like. Thankfully artist Lauren “Iguanamouth” Dawson took up the pen and breathed some life into these new unofficial Pokémon.
Image: Tumblr/Lauren “Iguanamouth” Dawson
Kotaku reports that Shane has gone beyond Pokémon and has started teaching the neural network superhero names as well as a Lovecraft and cookbook mashup. Whatever new oddities this neural network will produce next, let’s hope Iguanamouth or some other artists are up to the task of illustrating them. Alfred Bayle /ra