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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Technology
Elena Cresci

What if Donald Trump was Liberace? Or the pope? Microsoft's AI chatbot has the answers

Donald Trump giant hands composite
What is Donald Trump had giant hands? Photograph: Project Murphy

If you’ve ever desperately wanted to create sometimes horrifying face swaps, but lacked the Photoshop skills or, er, Snapchat - then Microsoft has the chatbot for you.

Project Murphy isn’t exactly new – it was unveiled back in March at Microsoft’s developer conference – but since it was released on Facebook Messenger, its weird creations have been popping up all over the place.

Here’s how it works: you head to either Skype, Messenger or Telegram to say hello to Murphy. Then you ask it a question starting with “What if …”

Project Murphy at work in Facebook Messenger.
Project Murphy at work in Facebook Messenger. Photograph: Facebook Messenger

The bot then spits out a photo matching your request.

Project Murphy’s view on Jeremy Corbyn as prime minister.
Project Murphy’s view on Jeremy Corbyn as prime minister. Photograph: Facebook Messenger

Sometimes, they work eerily well.

Other times, it’s just plain weird.

Actually, scratch that: it’s mostly weird. Especially when politics is involved.

So there we have it. Here’s hoping Murphy doesn’t have similar problems to Microsoft’s last foray into AI.

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