Artificial Intelligence, Maybe Not Quite So Intelligent After All

At least not for correctly identifying coats of arms, anyway.

My on-going, and only partly successful, attempts to use artificial intelligence (AI) as an aid in the identification of coats of arms continues, with mixed results.

For today's coat of arms, photographed in Bratislava, Slovakia, it was eventually mostly successful, but only after several attempts where I had to keep double-checking everything it was trying to tell me, explain why what it said was incorrect, and have it try again.

I was asking AI for the specific building in Bratislava with this coat of arms above the doorway, and the name of the family whose coat it was.

AI did manage to give me the name of the building pretty quickly (naturally, I had told it that this building was in Bratislava, to enable it to narrow down its search).

It told me that this building is the "Palffy Palace, and is among the oldest historic sights in Bratislava. Detailed research in the interior discovered masonry from the first half of the 13th century. In 1988 the palace was taken over by the Bratislava City Gallery that holds here a range of permanent expositions and temporary exhibitions."

Super! Now I have an identification of the building.

For the arms, though, I had to go through several iterations with AI to get a good identification.

First it told me that the bird was an eagle (a close look at the arms makes this unlikely), and I had to keep guiding guiding it back on track to get it to finally produce an identification that not only made sense, but was also corroborated by other information on the internet.

This is what AI finally told me (my comments about its findings are contained in square brackets):

"It [the coat of arms] belongs to Bernhard Wachtler, a member of the Prešov city council. [I question this; Prešov is quite a distance from Bratislava. Other information I found about Bernhard tells me that Bernhard Wachtler (†1827) became a member of the city council of ... Bratislava, Slovakia in 1801.]

The Wachtler family was the owner of the palace from 1870 to 1945. [So the arms are in fact not those of this Bernhard; he died 43 years before the family owned the palace.] The coat of arms shows a quail holding a stalk in its beak. It is a so-called speaking [canting] coat of arms (quail, German: wachtl), which corresponds to the surname of its bearer. The crown above the coat of arms with five pearls (baronial) indicates that its bearer was a nobleman. [I decided not to get into a conversation with AI about this statement. I was looking for the identification of the arms, and not the family's status.] The Wachtlers were wealthy merchants and city officials, and owned or renovated several properties in central Bratislava."

I've not been able to find a blazon for the Wachtler arms in any of the usual suspects (most importantly, J-B Rietstap's Armorial Général). The field, presumably, is blue. The trimount in base, equally presumably, is green. The quail, likely silver, but possibly gold, and is either rising or displayed. I have not been able to identify the sprig in its beak; it appears to consist of a short branch with three or four leaves and what may be a couple of berries of some type on it. (Though this last could just by my misinterpretation of the way the carving looks.)

Be that as it may, with at least a fair bit of coaching and explaining and telling it outright that it was wrong, AI finally did come up with an accurate (mostly) identification of the arms over the doorway on the façade of the Palffy Palace in Bratislava, Slovakia.

My thanks once again to my friend Katie, who thought to take pictures of heraldry for me while on her river cruise through Europe.

I Love My Friends. Artificial Intelligence, Not So Much

Late last year a friend of mine, Katie, returned from a two-week river cruise vacation in Europe, and here and there amidst all of the fun and good times she was having there, she thought to take some pictures of the coats of arms she saw there just for me!

And now, with her kind permission, I get to share some of her photos of heraldry with you.

The trick, of course, is to identify all of these coats of arms. "Ah,", I thought. "This could be a good trial of just how effective artificial intelligence can be in helping to identify at least the buildings, and likely the coats of arms carved on their facades."

Well, I was half right.

The first trial was this shot, taken in Bratislava, Slovakia.

I uploaded this photo to AI, and it quickly (and accurately; I checked) told me that this building is the Reduta, the historic home of the Slovak Philharmonic in Bratislava, Slovakia, built between 1913 and 1915.

Then I asked it specifically about the coats of arms above the doorway. (Alas, the oval cartouche in the center of the triangular pediment in the upper portion of this picture is blank. No arms or any other carving.)

It quickly and, again, accurately, identified the arms on the shield on the right as the coat of arms of the city of Bratislava: Gules a triple-towered castle argent roofed proper portcullised or. These arms have been used by the city since 1436.

However, regarding the arms in the oval frame on the left, AI flat out lied to me! It explained that the arms on the left were those of the Kingdom of Hungary.

A close look at the photograph above, and comparing to some other photographs of this doorway I found on-line, what I see there is not one, but four overlapping shields: Two behind and flanking, with eagles displayed; a larger one in the center, with looks like a pale, but I can’t see it clearly enough to be sure; and a smaller uppermost shield which looks a bit like Slovakia (or the sinister half of the arms of the Kingdom of Hungary). The Slovakian arms are a 20th century creation based on an existing 14th century Hungarian coat of arms in the seal of King Louis I of Hungary.

So, not a single shield with the arms of Hungary, but four shields with different charges on them, none of which appear to be the arms of Hungary.

But who am I going to believe, AI or my own eyes?

For some reason, I am reminded of Carol Kane playing Miracle Max's wife in The Princess Bride:

Liar! Liar!