MIT algorithm can predict the (immediate) future from still images

File: 524857-generative-video[1].jpg_thumb=y&width=740&height=426.jpg (68KB, 740x416px) Image search: [Google]

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http://www.pcmag.com/news/349890/mit-ai-looks-at-still-images-predicts-what-will-happen-next

http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/mit-future-video/

https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/28/ai-creates-videos-of-the-future/

>The human brain's capacity for imagination is boundless. But machine intelligence still struggles to form images, ideas, and sensations without direct input.

>Researchers from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), however, led by PhD student Carl Vondrick, has developed a deep-learning algorithm that creates short videos to simulate the future of a still image, like a beach with crashing waves or golfers walking along the grass.

>"These videos show us what computers think can happen in a scene," Vondrick said in a statement. "If you can predict the future, you must have understood something about the present."

>Vondrick worked with MIT professor Antonio Torralba and University of Maryland Baltimore County professor Hamed Pirsiavash on the project. They are not the first to tackle this topic, but their model does pioneer new techniques—like processing an entire scene at once.

>"Building up a scene frame-by-frame is like a big game of 'Telephone,' which means that the message falls apart by the time you go around the whole room," Vondrick said. "By instead trying to predict all frames simultaneously, it's as if you're talking to everyone in the room at once."