Throughout history, one of the most discussed and debated artistic works stem from none other than the celebrated, Leonardo da Vinci. Da Vinci's oil painting and portrait, known as the famed Mona Lisa, has baffled scientists who have speculated over a 500 year old mystery regarding the disposition of the portraits subject. The portrait, based on Lisa Gherardini, wife of a Florentine silk merchant, has been interpreted by many to display varying emotions, whether the familiar smile of a loved one or the cold grin of an enemy. In the past, attempts have been made to determine whether Mona Lisa really was smiling, with varying degrees of accuracy and a diversity of approaches.
The most accomplished endeavor being in 2005, when Dutch researchers from the University of Amsterdam, ran the painting through "emotion recognition" software, which revealed that she was 83% happy, with a 17% margin of error. Since the Deep Learning boom of 2010-12, the advances in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, have not been applied to provide a new perspective. Today, in 2018, Ean Mikale, J.D., and fellow researchers, Ricky Reed, Orlando Crawford, and Kevin McGee at Infinite 8 A.I., were able to utilize modern software and hardware to revisit the age-old question. With only an early version of our model, we were able to achieve an accuracy of 92%, showing Mona Lisa as happy, with an 8% margin of error. The findings were discovered in Infinite 8's Deep Learning Lab. The initial models were tested using IBM's Watson Supercomputer. Advanced Deep Neural Networks have since been successfully developed on local supercomputing hardware with increasingly higher levels of accuracy and broad inferencing capability.
The technology is positioned to disrupt many fields, including history itself. Emotional Artificial Intelligence could be used to find meaning and context behind many historical pictures, paintings, and artifacts. It will come to define how we interact with everything imagineable. While other scientists in the field of Artificial Intelligence see emotion as a way for humans to better interact with machines, we at Infinite 8 A.I., see artificial emotional intelligence as a way for humans to better interact with themselves.
Ean Mikale, J.D., is Founder of The Drone School, a serial Dronetrepreneur, current participant of the NVIDIA Inception Program for AI Startups, IBM Global Entrepreneur, member of the National Small Business Association Leadership and Technology Councils, and has been featured in the London-based Global Banking and Finance Review Magazine for his work in social finance. Follow him on Linkedin, Instagram, and Facebook: @eanmikale