Descriptive Camera prints a description of what it sees

The Descriptive Camera by Matt Richardson “works a lot like a regular camera — point it at subject and press the shutter button to capture the scene. However, instead of producing an image, this prototype outputs a text description of the scene.”

The camera sends the digital image to Mechanical Turk, in about 5 minutes at an average cost of $1.25, an anonymous worker sends back a short description. The camera prints this text on a built-in mini thermal printer.

Although Richardson sees it as a prototype for AI-supplied metadata, it’s more interesting to me as an art object which produces poignant little interpretations, sometimes inaccurate or with very limited context, but with a kind of earnest innocence.

http://mattrichardson.com/Descriptive-Camera