Nightmarish vision of the world as seen through the eyes of Google

These nightmarish images offer a unique and mesmerizing insight into how computers see the world - and what happens when a mind-bogglingly complex system of artificial intelligence is let off its leash. To discern and process the billions of photos that pass through its site, Google engineers designed ingenious tools known as artificial neural networks, or'ANNs'. Google's ANNs are programmed, through an endless stream of similar photos, to recognise objects within images by their distinctive characteristics. For example, the ANN will be taught to recognise a fork by processing millions of pictures of forks - eventually understanding that it has a handle and two to four tines. Now Google is offering the public these networks' codes - allowing people to upload photos and mutate them into terrifying and wonderful versions of the original.