The AI bot will turn your doodle into an actual drawing

Apr 12, 2017 00:37 GMT  ·  By

Google is going to help you finally turn your doodles into something that actually resembles whatever you're trying to draw. It's all thanks to an AI bot, of course. 

I don't know about you, but my drawings are awful. My elephants are unrecognizable, and my horses may pass as dogs, my humans are more or less stick figures, and my houses look terrible. Thanks to Google's new AI, however, they may finally turn into something someone other than myself could recognize.

The automated drawing bot works by analyzing your drawing in real time and suggesting a more...  polished piece of clip art to replace it.

AutoDraw is a new software that Google has created as it tries to expand its machine learning capabilities, experimenting left and right. The tool makes use of the same technology that Google uses for the experimental image recognition software which they're trying to train to identify potential objects, pairing them with a database of simplistic hand-drawn images.

A tool for the masses

Google considers AutoDraw is a "drawing tool for the rest of us," which means it's perfect for all of us who wouldn't have gotten a passing grade in art class without someone's help. "AutoDraw pairs the magic of machine learning with drawings from talented artists to help you draw stuff fast," the narrator of Google's teaser video for AutoDraw says.

As more people will use AutoDraw, the system will only get better, as it happens with AIs. Its capabilities are already extraordinary since it managed to recognize something I drew by using my mouse - as if my regular drawings weren't horrendous enough.

Of course, AutoDraw isn't perfect, as it often doesn't really grasp what you're trying to draw, offering options that really have nothing to do with what you had in mind. That's to be expected, however, and it will surely do better in time as it learns more and more. After all, you can't expect it to read your mind to know what you were hoping to achieve when you have zero talent at drawing.