Signals & Stats : Daily Signals

A-Eye curation

By Rhiannon McGregor 10 : 11 : 2016 Awakening Tech : EyeEm : Magazine

Berlin – Photography publication EyeEm has launched the first journal to be curated entirely by artificial intelligence.

Machina: A Curation of Real Photography by a Machine has been compiled by an algorithm
It is made up of the images of more than 18m photographers

Machina: A Curation of Real Photography by a Machine published by EyeEm, Berlin

EyeEm Vision applies deep learning technology to gauge both the visuals and the mood of photographs in order to rank the most aesthetically pleasing and the most impactful.

The artificial intelligence (AI) technology, which has been trained by EyeEm staff members and therefore to a certain extent reflects their preferences, assigned all of the images from the company’s pool of photographers an aesthetic score of between 0 and 100 to establish whether they were good or a bad.

‘Of course, this score isn’t a definitive assessment and photographers are beautifully sensitive beings,’ Paul Aguirre-Livingston, EyeEm’s associate creative director, tells The Creators Project. It’s meant as more of a guideline, a starting point for discussion or evaluation.’

Employing AI technology to curate the magazine opens up a multifaceted debate on the fundamental nature of creativity, but Aguirre-Livingston suggests that intelligent technology does have the potential to help to reduce workflow for photographers and editors in the future.

The Big Picture

Brands are pushing the boundaries of AI, learning to explore the ways that it can be imbued with human qualities, but will it ever be capable of replicating the irregularities of human creativity? To read more, see our Cracking Creativity column.