Face swaps, chat-bots and other computer-generated novelties have long been a crutch for procrastinators everywhere.
But what if you combined them into one?
We now interrupt your mundane working week to bring you Microsoft’s latest and ludicrous venture in artificial intelligence: his name is Murphy.
Murphy can chat with you on a number of platforms, including Skype, Facebook and Telegram, with Kik and Slack coming soon, according to the website.
But what makes Murphy different from the disastrous chat-bot experiment “Tay” – who was corrupted into an arrogant racist within 24 hours of going live on Twitter – is that Murphy will produce bizarre image-crossovers of your favorite celebrities.
Unfortunately, his programmers have also learnt to put a censor on what responses Murphy will give.
Nonetheless, there is much fun to be had.
Get set to spend hours asking Murphy questions such as, “What if Pauline Hanson was a Muslim?” and “What if Donald Trump was Dolly Parton?”
Of course, it’s nothing you couldn’t get from other image-merging software, but it’s pretty great to be given randomised images on demand by a polite bot like Murphy.
After he’s sent you his image, you can review it, by typing either :) to indicate you’re happy and you would like more, or :( to indicate that it’s turned out a bit too weird and you’d like him to try again.
Give it a go yourself at projectmurphy.net.
Nathan Hondros
Senior Journalist for the Mandurah Mail, Australian Community Media, and Fairfax Media.
Senior Journalist for the Mandurah Mail, Australian Community Media, and Fairfax Media.
