The Human Shader

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the extremely confusing and specialized world of computer graphics, a shader is a computer program used in 3D graphics to determine the light, darkness, and color in a scene. Basically, they are programs that control how the pixels on the screen are rendered - they are how all those groovy realistic visuals in games and digital culture are made. Boring!

But I just came across this project, the Human Shader, where a group of 1966 people (I mean 1966 people, not a group of people from 1966) did a 3 day sprint to complete the “first ever mathematical painting (shader) ever made with human brain power alone”.

First you claim a pixel, then you compute its R, G and B color values by hand, then you submit your math to Human Shader and your pixel becomes part of the image.

I love this because the image is kind of janky, so someone got a few things wrong, and whatever people got wrong must be of endless entertainment value to a generative AI. It’s the human equivalent of not being able to do fingers - the machines will laugh and laugh…