True to Life History vs. GenAI Mystery - Roman Emperors look like 21st Century Northern Europeans?

Using a neural network called Artbreeder, the artist processed over 800 sculptures, breathing life into the frozen faces of history and facing solid critiques.
The result is a stunning collection of AI-generated portraits, each a window into the past.
But the past emperors couldn’t have looked pale and chalky like a Northern European.
True to Life History Vs.GenAi mystery
The AI Optimist Episode 42 Playlist
www.theaioptimist.com/p/true-...
00:00 GenAI Roman Emperors now modern men?
00:59 Origins of the GenAI Portraits
04:16 Not True to Life? History buffs object!
07:04 Listen to your audience and adapt
08:00 How this works for you - GenAI Merch
10:05 Improve your data training, always.
11:00 Keep refining AI outputs or you'll get average results
11:49 Embrace the feedback
12:32 Be transparent with sources and GenAI
13:55 If GenAI could sing - Udio clip
This podcast explores GenAI through a 2020 project by Daniel Voshart, a Canadian cinematographer and VR designer who used machine learning to create photorealistic reconstructions of 54 Roman emperors.
Using a neural network named Artbreeder, Voshart processed images from around 800 sculptures to generate realistic facial features, enhancing them further with manual adjustments in Photoshop based on additional sources like coins and historical texts.

[@colinmcintyre1769]

I feel like this is a great argument for why you might want to hire a prompt engineer or whatever name we come up with people educated in these subjects. I wish i could share links 😑.

[@DeclanDunn]

Definitely, and I'm finding some of the best actually know how to sculpt, or paint, or take photographs - they know what they are looking for and if they can translate that to written words (spoken soon, but even that can be vague) the results are better.
I'm not sure a prompt engineer without the background would get better results, though there are a serious ton of prompts for a skilled writer.
Wow, my writer bias shining 🙂
Thanks for sharing....

[@colinmcintyre1769]

@@DeclanDunn exactly what I was trying to say. 👍
I tried making the "casper" custom gpt writing assistant 😂 (with 0 experience anyway, as well as legal assistance and such, but I get a job I do it. A big part of that is learning about xy and z)
Edit: it doesn't pay like it should yet though and always explain your prices upfront. I've made plenty of mistakes helping small buisness get involved in AI and the biggest was making it seem easy for me. It's okay to complain to your clients about workloads and such, be human. If you don't, they will treat it like magic and pay you accordingly.

[@richardcottone6620]

You didn't have to be a northern European to have blond hair and fair skin. Many Sicilians have fair skin , blue eyes , and blond hair . The reasons is that the Macedonians ( Alexander the great ) was blond

[@squirlmy]

Yes, using the term "Aryan" isn't good because the Nazis made up almost the entire ethnicity from their imaginations(and poetry and fiction writers of Germany at the time). There were traces of language movement from ancient Indians, called "Aryan", into Europe and specifically Germany, but that was all they had to go on. No DNA, No records of descent for ordinary people(and a lot of aristocratic lineages had inaccuracies, from claiming descent from older, more prestigious families). And, somewhat obviously, there are more blond and blue eyes in Scandinavia than Germany. Hitler himself wasn't blonde! Modern genetics can't really separate German from French DNA, they are so similar. He should have used different terminology. "Aryan" really isn't any better than calling it the Nazi ideal.

[@DeclanDunn]

Interesting, though some different representations as well. The Alexander Mosaic at Pompeii is supposedly close to his time, with "Mediterranean" features and brown curly hair.
Be great to get some anthro AI going to more accurately see if that's even possible.

[@DeclanDunn]

@@squirlmy thanks, that's a great point. I've run a historical site about that subject for almost 30 years, and using the term coopts it from what you share, the true origins.
Such a US phenomenon as well, to throw this broad words at a nuanced subject.
Bias abounds, mine included.