The Nightmare Machine

So far, the algorithm seems to be doing a pretty good job. The images being produced aren't just otherworldly or psychedelic, like so many computer-generated images in the realm of machine learning, but straight-up spooky. For example, check out how the Nightmare Machine transformed an ordinary image of the Statue of Liberty into something out of Ghostbusters. Or how it makes a photo of the Louvre look like it's been transported to a terrible Parisian hellscape: More unsettling than these landscapes are the ghoulish algorithm-generated faces that the Nightmare Machine has churned out. To refine the algorithm, researchers are asking humans to vote on which faces are scariest.