ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com Is A Terrifying
AI-generated fake images and videos can occasionally be funny, but usually they're a creepy look into an all-too-near future where we can't distinguish the real from the fake. Thispersondoesnotexist.com is a scary example of the latter.
The site displays one thing: a photo of a seemingly real person. The photo changes each time you refresh the page. But the people in the photos are not real. They're AI-generated fakes, produced by a generative adversarial network (GAN) built by graphics and machine learning giant Nvidia. Here's a look at how it works:
But you'd be hard-pressed to guess the faces are fake, just from looking at them. Is this your company's CEO? No, he's fake:
Is this the lady down the street? Nope, this set of pixels is not real:
Have you seen this woman? Of course you haven't, nobody has ever seen her:
When a tell does become apparent, it's often found in the background. Here, the foliage is clearly reminiscent of the psychedelic images produced by Google's Deep Dream:
Here, the stray, shimmering blob hanging over this guy's head is a giveaway:
As is the blurring of the microphone here:
And occasionally, it messes up faces too, like this lady's impossible eye wrinkles:
Still, it seems only a matter of time before Nvidia and others work out the final kinks and at that point society is well and truly screwed.
