This article was published on March 3, 2016

This AI-powered search tool will find you a movie where Sean Bean survives


This AI-powered search tool will find you a movie where Sean Bean survives

How many hours do you think you’ve wasted searching for a movie to suit your mood? It’s probably more than anyone wants to think about.

Well, a new AI-powered search tool that’s specifically designed for movies might be able to solve this conundrum. Val.ai analyzes over 1,000 qualities of movies so it can give you the best results for even the most tedious searches. It is currently available to try out on the Web and is in a beta integration with Amazon’s Alexa.

The software works by identifying qualities from RAW video footage and noting things like people’s emotions, the setting, themes and even objects or buildings.

With Val.ai’s search, you can ask it anything and you’re likely to get an accurate result. For example, I’m a fan of Mr Ryan Gosling so I searched for ‘A movie where Ryan Gosling is being lovely’ and the results were ‘The Notebook’ and ‘Blue Valentine,’ which are both solid choices.

Screen Shot 2016-03-03 at 10.28.12

Some other searches I tried included ‘Movies where Sean Bean doesn’t die’ and ‘Jennifer Lawrence Microwave’ – both of which gave me perfect results.

Screen Shot 2016-03-03 at 10.26.13

I did search ‘Audrey Hepburn eating a croissant’ and expect to get ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ but it was the third option that came up so it’s not entirely perfect at reading minds just yet but it’s definitely going to speed up the movie-selection process on a Friday night.

The company’s aim is to have its software integrated with services like Netflix, so people can do real-time, accurate searches of anything they’re in the mood for, instead of trawling through the feeds, which would definitely be a welcome update.

➤ Valossa Announces Val.ai – A Voice-Controlled, Real-Time Video Recognition Platform [Valossa]

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