Images Tell Stories

I've long been fascinated with the power of images and the stories they tell. But now, the images can actually "talk." Who knows if they are telling the truth?

I've just read Google's Image Recognition Software Can Now Describe EntireScenes. This is interesting from several perspectives, but currently, it sparks a conceptual idea for the creation of digital stories as a result searching images and allowing the data to create a story. This random collection of descriptions about what is happening in an image seems bizarre and remote from true storytelling. But wait, don’t we tell ourselves stories… make up some plausible narrative about what we see around us every day? Isn't it human nature to make meaning out of what we see? Perhaps the image-generated story might just be the starting point to explore and learn what has really been captured in a particular image. Perhaps this could be the catalyst for real learning. How different is this from vetting a story from social media, particularly by those in professional journalism. How different is this from detective work, archaeology or other forms of research? Let’s experiment and see what we can learn as we seek to discover the truth.