At least as a meme, the Internet knows this gimmick from the early Pokémon anime very well. The pocket monster universe, which I also grew up with, now counts well over 900 different monsters in every conceivable appearance, type and level.
But the animal kingdom is still ahead of Pokémon, with 5,500 known mammals alone (far more than dogs, cats, and rodents). This can’t go on, a fan thought, and spontaneously used an AI to solve the problem. The artificial intelligence’s mission: to create new Pokémon while making them look as real as possible.
I forced a bot to look at every Pokémon and told it to generate its own. Here are the results.
(this isn’t a joke, that’s actually how I made these) pic.twitter.com/MfJUWJHZoB
— Max Woolf (@minimaxir) December 15, 2021
Max Woolf’s Poké-Bot was trained with the previously known pocket monsters and then instructed to show off its own designs. As is often the case with such models, some responses tend to have something whimsical to creepy, while others may well appeal to Nintendo and the Pokémon Company.
How close Woolf is to catchable monsters with his result is shown by the reaction of fans. They’re already starting to name the new Pokédex entries and incorporate them into their fanarts. Perhaps this is the beginning of a wonderful career for the Poké-Bot in Nintendo’s next series of games.
Post picture: Max Woolf
