Meta Launches New Tool that Animates Kids’ Character Drawings
Here’s an idea that sounds fun and cute but is actually kind of frightening in execution. Today, Meta has launched a new AI-based tool which is able to animate kids’ drawings, turning their created characters into moving cartoons for all to… enjoy.
As explained by Meta:
“Our researchers have developed the first-of-its-kind method for using AI to automatically animate children’s hand-drawn figures of people and humanlike characters (i.e., a character with two arms, two legs, a head, etc.). By uploading drawings to our prototype system, parents and children can watch their drawings become moving characters that dance, skip and jump. And, they can even download a video of their animated drawings to share with friends and family.”
It’s a little disturbing, and could end up freaking your kids out as much as entertaining them.
As an experiment, the project highlights Meta’s ongoing work to improve machine learning capacity, with systems that can expand beyond common understanding of human movements into interpretation of images of less conventional characters.
“While many AI tools can handle realistic images of humans, children’s drawings add a level of variety and unpredictability that makes identifying what’s being portrayed much more complex […] By teaching AI to work effectively with children’s drawings, we hope this project will move us closer to building AI that can understand the world from a human point of view.”
I mean, I guess animating your kids’ weird creations is moving things to a more human perspective. Maybe. I don’t know. It seems like things could go very wrong, and you could end up bringing characters to life that will haunt your kids dreams for years to come.
But if you’re not concerned about mental trauma, then it could be fun – you can try out Meta’s AI animated drawings tool here.
Andrew Hutchinson
Published Dec. 16, 2021