A Neural Network is Generating Really Convincing Fake POKÉMON

Look, we love Pokémon as much as the next nerdy website, but even we’ll admit that some of the creatures didn’t take a ton of human creativity to come up with. Birds like Pidgey and Spearow are just birds, while Klekfi is literally a floating set of keys. Sometimes, it feels like a computer could come up with new Pokémon without much trouble, and actually, it turns out that there’s a neural network that’s doing just that (via Kotaku).

Research scientist Janelle Shane decided to test a neural network and see if it could learn how to generate Pokémon names and abilities. It turns out that after not too long, the neural network became pretty darn good at coming up with convincing new creatures. Here are some examples of what it generated:

Quincelax

Abilities: Sturdy, Secene Grace

Hidden ability: Tunged Leus

Tortabool

Ability: Healy Stream

Strangy

Abilities: Wharmwbra, Darp

Hidden ability: Magic Guard

Staroptor

Ability: Stench

Hidden Ability: Stick Hat

Stangute

Ability: Banger

Hidden Ability: Drang

Tyrnakine

Ability: Beak Eye

Minma

Abilities: Buttery armor, Shell Armor

Hidden ability: Weak armor

Ronch

Abilities: None

Mawuh

Ability: Rum Power

Those sound pretty legit, right? What would cement them as being super realistic is if we could actually see what they look like. That’s where artist Lauren “Iguanamouth” Dawson comes in: She caught wind of the post and came to the same conclusion we did, so here are her renderings of the nine “Fakémon”:

Ronch is literally a bottle of Hidden Valley ranch dressing and Mawuh is just Agumon with a handgun, and we’re OK with that. Hit up the comments and let us know which of Iguanamouth’s designs is your favorite.

Images: iguanamouth