We ran 'Game of Thrones' characters through Amazon's facial recognition software
While facial recognition software has made huge leaps recently -- being used for security in airports, catching criminals on the streets, and even distracted students -- it just took the next, big leap we've been waiting for: recognizing celebrities.
Amazon's Rekognition tool, launched last year, has a bunch of great uses, including image moderation that can flag offensive images and other image detection tools useful for websites.
But now it's added -- drumroll -- celebrity recognition! It's useful for photo indexing if you have a site full of celebrities (like, say, a boy band fan page which I most certainly do not have, don't bother trying to find it).
Fast Company took the tool for a quick spin and it seemed to do well recognizing Britney Spears and Snoop Dogg but had trouble with M.C. Hammer. That's pretty okay for a few 1990s icons.
But we at Mashable are far more concerned with Game Of Thrones, as you might have noticed, so we decided to test Rekognition's ability to recognize the most important figures of Westeros and beyond.
Results were ... mixed.
Rekognition had no issues recognizing Kit Harrington (Jon Snow), Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister), or Maisie Williams (Arya Stark). Boom, three for three.
Got it.
Roger.
Good so far.
But then things got ... weird.
First up, Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister, one of the series' most popular character.
Rekognition identified him as Italian moutaineer Reinhold Messner. That's... a random "celebrity" to mistake Dinklage for but, well, take a look at some Messner photos and, sure, I can see it. But it's still a bit random.
But Dinklage wasn't alone. Rekognition had trouble with three major women characters.
Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen) was identified multiple times as model Rosie Mac who is actually Clarke's body double.
But that's better than what happened to Sophie Turner (Sansa Stark) and Lena Headey (Cersei Lannister).
Turner was first identified as Swedish handball player Johanna Bundsen who is apparently more recognizable than a young actress who is part of both the Game of Thrones and X-Men franchises. Sure. Okay.
Really? Nothing?
But that's not even as weird as Headey, who was identified as former New Zealand soccer player Chris Killen who was recently charged with sexual assault and what the blue hell, Rekognition??? What is it with random athletes?
On a second try, we got a big, ol' nothing burger for Headey -- which I guess is actually better than the first result?
And that brings us to the final example, the infamous Night King. Who, pray tell, would Rekognition identify when we pushed through a completely fictitious creation (though one portrayed by real-life actors Richard Brake and Vladimir Furdik)?
LOL okay. I'll take that one.
It's new technology, after all.
Marcus Gilmer is Mashable's Assistant Real-Times News Editor on the West Coast, reporting on breaking news from his location in San Francisco. An Alabama native, Marcus earned his BA from Birmingham-Southern College and his MFA in Communications from the University of New Orleans. Marcus has previously worked for Chicagoist, The A.V. Club, the Chicago Sun-Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.
