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Watch 100,000 People Draw a Cat at the Same Time

Last year, Google released a tool called Quick, Draw! that looked sort of like Pictionary, but was really a tool for training neural networks. It would ask users to draw something, and then run it through the neural network to see if machines could identify whatever was drawn.

The way neural networks operate is that they need to be “trained.” That means feeding them a lot of pre-classified data. The thinking goes that after showing a computer 100,000 pictures of a dog, it will be able to spot dogs in pictures on its own, through pattern recognition.

This week, Google released a trove of data that it collected from Quick, Draw! — useful for training networks, identifying geographic trends (each drawing is tagged by country), and doing other weird stuff. On Google’s site, you can watch as each simple sketch is created in real time, all at once.

Here’s a bunch of cats.

Here are a few stereos.

Lastly, a bunch of wimpy Eiffel Towers.

There are millions of other drawings on the site, so feel free to click around there.

Watch 100,000 People Draw a Cat at the Same Time