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Artificial Intelligence Creates Portraits Of People Who Don’t Exist And It’s Creepy
Who sAId robots couldn’t be creative? artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer the stuff of science fiction films, and now this technology is tapping into the art world. In a new paper published by NVIDIA researchers, they released photographic portraits completely generated by AI (GAN) but with a twist – none of the people in the images actually exist.
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Image credits: Tero Karras, Samuli Laine, Timo Aila
According to The Verge GAN was introduced in 2014. The portraits at the time were semi life-like, grainy and in black and white. Jump forward to the portrait photography simulation today, and the resemblance to a real person is so accurate that most people can’t tell the difference.
The current researchers were able to use their AI to copy the ‘styles’ of various face sources then create blends of these originals to develop completely new “people.” It took eight weeks for the researchers to train the AI, using powerful GPUs.
Faces generated by “A Style-Based Generator Architecture for GANs.”
But the artificial intelligence future promises more than these faces, in 2014 75% of IKEA’s catalogue photos were computer generated. Just like with any technological advance, there could be a negative repercussion. With the ability to create faces, furniture, cars, and real estate it calls into question the future for stock photographers and where their place will be in this new digitized world, following this artificial intelligence example.
“These datasets were trained using the setup for the duration of 70M images for ‘bedroom’ and ‘cats,’ and 46M for ‘cars'”
Watch how AI has progressed in this 6- minute video
What do you think ?
FortnitePlayerGirl 6 years ago
So THAT'S why the bedspreads I buy online don't match colorwise!!!! I bet that the clothes you buy online are also computer generated, considering the results I get when I buy ANY PIECE OF CLOTHING off of Amazon.
Han 6 years ago
Coupled with apps that now imitate our voices, yep. Basically don't trust anything mate. Only gonna get worse.
Load More Replies...
Nikki D 6 years ago
They do! Cats must be harder to generate than faces, cars, or bedrooms.
Load More Replies...
John Louis 6 years ago
How long will it be before we are watching movies that involve no real actors, no real voices and no real set design. I want to see a new Star Trek movie with characters that look and sound exactly like the 1960's original Star Trek.
Marnee DeRider 6 years ago
That was exactly the first though that popped into my mind. And eventually, people can just make up a persona and use that to interact with others as if it's really them. Then you'll get people on talk shows saying, "But we skyped! I thought he was real!"
Load More Replies...
SykesDaMan 6 years ago
Are we sure that's not already a thing? Maybe some people in the news are not real...
Lunar eclipse 6 years ago
So damn scary how quick ai is getting more advanced... Here comes ex machina
JD Higginson 6 years ago
Most bad things started out with good intentions. Just like Social Security...if you don't know why or how that got started and where it is today is the perfect example. Computers were suppose to make our lives easier. I don't know about you but I'm more stressed out then I ever was. Even this stupid iPhone gets pissed off at ME if I don't do the updates. This kind of stuff scares the s**t out of me !!
Marnee DeRider 6 years ago
It's not art, though. I wonder, what was the purpose of programming the computer to do this? Just because they could? I really wanted to get into AI research after college, (in 1997) but didn't think I could handle the moral quandaries of it. But I shouldn't have worried. There has never been a time when someone said, " I COULD create this new thing, but I won't, because it will just hurt people in the long run." Just doesn't happen.
Daryl Marrero 3 years ago
It's hilarious because my face and profile are all fake. I used the very website to generate the face. We are technologically evolving too fast!
Quinn Alexander 6 years ago
And cue all the crazy technophobes and fake-news buffs are who are going to try to push that this incredible breakthrough of technology is the root of all evil invented by the evil scary government.
Elfmonkey 6 years ago (edited)
See, I can understand why people get upset over losing their jobs, but people doing one job have been replaced by something else throughout our existence. Such is evolution. Things become obsolete. Personally I find this rather cool! Yes, it might have some drawbacks, but doesn't everything? What cannot be used for nefarious purposes if someone so wished?
Cat on a bike 6 years ago
Humans turned out great but the cat was not that successfull. Because cats are aliens, you can't make them up.
Pretty Pangolin 6 years ago
I'm impressed by the AI figures' nice smiles - that must be one of the hardest things to capture and have it look genuine. It doesn't take much to fall into the Uncanny Valley.
Justin Hickey 6 years ago
Somewhat cool, but why train AI with this capability? What kind of Black Site shenanigans are going to spill from it?
PandasDelights 6 years ago
It would be crazy to find a real life doppelgänger for one of these "people".
anarkzie 6 years ago
You could in the future get record labels making perfect pop star based on customer feedback surveys or information gathered from our online listening habits or even, Tin foil hat time, a government creating a terrorist foil to whip up the population to want to attack a country.
Sveta Smirnova 6 years ago
How to define it? If i take photo and use a bit of photoshop, then the image is not real as well. So i can say “none of these are real, made by me"
The Frog 6 years ago
So initially I'm sitting here thinking what? No? Really?.. then WOW! They're actually kinda cool, but then realisation sets in... what exactly are these pictures going to be used for? I mean we've already heard of "people disappearing" and then they use a pic of a Jane doe.. maybe I'm thinking way to much into it, maybe I need to take my foil hat off and take another promethazine lol
FortnitePlayerGirl 6 years ago
So THAT'S why the bedspreads I buy online don't match colorwise!!!! I bet that the clothes you buy online are also computer generated, considering the results I get when I buy ANY PIECE OF CLOTHING off of Amazon.
Han 6 years ago
Coupled with apps that now imitate our voices, yep. Basically don't trust anything mate. Only gonna get worse.
Load More Replies... Nikki D 6 years ago
They do! Cats must be harder to generate than faces, cars, or bedrooms.
Load More Replies... John Louis 6 years ago
How long will it be before we are watching movies that involve no real actors, no real voices and no real set design. I want to see a new Star Trek movie with characters that look and sound exactly like the 1960's original Star Trek.
Marnee DeRider 6 years ago
That was exactly the first though that popped into my mind. And eventually, people can just make up a persona and use that to interact with others as if it's really them. Then you'll get people on talk shows saying, "But we skyped! I thought he was real!"
Load More Replies... SykesDaMan 6 years ago
Are we sure that's not already a thing? Maybe some people in the news are not real...
Lunar eclipse 6 years ago
So damn scary how quick ai is getting more advanced... Here comes ex machina
JD Higginson 6 years ago
Most bad things started out with good intentions. Just like Social Security...if you don't know why or how that got started and where it is today is the perfect example. Computers were suppose to make our lives easier. I don't know about you but I'm more stressed out then I ever was. Even this stupid iPhone gets pissed off at ME if I don't do the updates. This kind of stuff scares the s**t out of me !!
Marnee DeRider 6 years ago
It's not art, though. I wonder, what was the purpose of programming the computer to do this? Just because they could? I really wanted to get into AI research after college, (in 1997) but didn't think I could handle the moral quandaries of it. But I shouldn't have worried. There has never been a time when someone said, " I COULD create this new thing, but I won't, because it will just hurt people in the long run." Just doesn't happen.
Daryl Marrero 3 years ago
It's hilarious because my face and profile are all fake. I used the very website to generate the face. We are technologically evolving too fast!
Quinn Alexander 6 years ago
And cue all the crazy technophobes and fake-news buffs are who are going to try to push that this incredible breakthrough of technology is the root of all evil invented by the evil scary government.
Elfmonkey 6 years ago (edited)
See, I can understand why people get upset over losing their jobs, but people doing one job have been replaced by something else throughout our existence. Such is evolution. Things become obsolete. Personally I find this rather cool! Yes, it might have some drawbacks, but doesn't everything? What cannot be used for nefarious purposes if someone so wished?
Cat on a bike 6 years ago
Humans turned out great but the cat was not that successfull. Because cats are aliens, you can't make them up.
Pretty Pangolin 6 years ago
I'm impressed by the AI figures' nice smiles - that must be one of the hardest things to capture and have it look genuine. It doesn't take much to fall into the Uncanny Valley.
Justin Hickey 6 years ago
Somewhat cool, but why train AI with this capability? What kind of Black Site shenanigans are going to spill from it?
PandasDelights 6 years ago
It would be crazy to find a real life doppelgänger for one of these "people".
anarkzie 6 years ago
You could in the future get record labels making perfect pop star based on customer feedback surveys or information gathered from our online listening habits or even, Tin foil hat time, a government creating a terrorist foil to whip up the population to want to attack a country.
Sveta Smirnova 6 years ago
How to define it? If i take photo and use a bit of photoshop, then the image is not real as well. So i can say “none of these are real, made by me"
The Frog 6 years ago
So initially I'm sitting here thinking what? No? Really?.. then WOW! They're actually kinda cool, but then realisation sets in... what exactly are these pictures going to be used for? I mean we've already heard of "people disappearing" and then they use a pic of a Jane doe.. maybe I'm thinking way to much into it, maybe I need to take my foil hat off and take another promethazine lol
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