back to article Want to create fake web profile pics? This creepy AI tool makes them on demand. Plus predictive policing, and more

Here's a summary of what's been going on in the world of machine-learning, beyond what we've already covered, to kick start your week... Google ramping up AI chips: It looks like Google have hired a bunch of new chip engineers in India to crank up its efforts for building hardware for AI and mobile phone applications. The …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Predictive Policing

    Blurring the distinction between Thought Criminals and Pre Criminals.

  2. b0llchit Silver badge
    Big Brother

    Who writes the writer written

    Any good AI would either make obvious mistakes or be critical of its own writing. Therefore, you may be an AI and the article may have been written by that same AI. Who are we to tell how clever you are?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    MUM!

    But ????

  4. Neil Barnes Silver badge

    This Person Does Not Exist

    Curiously, of the first dozen invented faces I tried from the site, four were sharing the same pair of glasses. Needs a bigger glasses database to avoid making a spectacle of itself.

    1. jackharbringer

      Re: This Person Does Not Exist

      I see what you did there.

    2. MrXavia

      Re: This Person Does Not Exist

      The distortion around hair gave it away in the 6 faces I looked at, plus other weird artefacts, very good fakes but still obviously altered images.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        At least it's the real Kochanski...

        > still obviously altered images.

        Especially so in this example.

    3. horse of a different color

      Re: This Person Does Not Exist

      Well, hopefully it won't lead to anyone getting framed.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Hey, it's a bit unfair to catch Orlowski in the morning after a boozy weekend :)

  6. 's water music

    thispersondoesnotexist.com

    crying out for a mashup with hotornot.com

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: crying out for a mashup with hotornot.com

      But this is the internet! Surely what we really "need" is a thisnakedpersondoesnotexist.com :-)

      1. Pen-y-gors

        Re: crying out for a mashup with hotornot.com

        Coming soon to an interweb near you...

        But it raises some interesting questions. How does a non-existent person demonstrate that they are over 18? Would the software also generate fake ID?

      2. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

        Re: crying out for a mashup with hotornot.com

        I gather that thisnakedpersondoesnotexist.com exists. It's just not conventionally been good at faces.

        And, this may be taken as a challenge, but, how many pictures of different naked people do you need, anyway.

  7. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    "people could be taken in by AI-generated news articles that read like a child wrote them"

    That's happening on Facebook all the time. It's Facebook that is a damning indictment of the state of our civilization.

    1. Jan 0 Silver badge

      Re: "people could be taken in by AI-generated news articles that read like a child wrote them"

      I would say the same about my local newspape.

    2. anonanonanon

      Re: "people could be taken in by AI-generated news articles that read like a child wrote them"

      That's been happening since before facebook, in my experience, the sort of people who spread the real nutty stuff barely read past the first few sentences that get them enraged, before immediately reposting to spread the real truth. These posts are often accompanied by linked reputable articles, to try to give legitimacy, that mention similar words to the ranty email in the first few sentences, enough that convinces the nutty reader that the rest of the article will support outlandish viewpoint.

      So to auto generate conspiracy theories, maybe all you have to do is skim scholarly articles and sites like prison planet or natural news, looking for words in the opening paragraph of the scholarly articles that overlap with the kook sites, then train the AI to use the language of the kooky site and seeding new posts using overlapped words, then publish with linked article and boom, gay frogs are coming to take over the world or something.

      1. M.V. Lipvig Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: "people could be taken in by AI-generated news articles that read like a child wrote them"

        Oh noes, you mean I can get AIDS from swimming now, because of the gay frogs?

        Takes a life of its own, it does.

    3. Bongwater

      Re: "people could be taken in by AI-generated news articles that read like a child wrote them"

      Koobface is an amazing vetting tool. Just trick everyone into using a website to placate their ego and boom you get to know a ton about them without making any real effort. Remember those quizzes that tell people only 9/10 get this right? I don't trust people who take those quizzes.

  8. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Terminator

    Couple the nVidia profile pic generator with OpenAI...

    ... and you have an all purpose commentard generator for Facebook, Twitter, and below the line on newspaper sites. What could possibly go wrong?

    Oh, according to the Commons report into Facebook out today, it already did.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I love that site - for privacy reasons!

    I've been amusing myself with https://thispersondoesnotexist.com for a few minutes now, and indeed, the mages come with occasionally rather weird artefacts. Be that as it may, by generating fictitious people you can get past the problem of having to put faces in presentations without violating anyone's privacy. Generate a few images, cut away background and presto.

    Useful.

    That said, I second the comment about the rather small variation on glasses. And head coverings :).

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge
      Alert

      Re: I love that site - for privacy reasons!

      One-time profile photos that don't show up in a reverse image search such as Tineye or Google Images... They must be getting a lot of hits from St. Petersburg right now.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I love that site - for privacy reasons!

      It's intriguing - also its quite a good advert for algorithmic bias. A few dozen clicks and its obvious that some quite common ethnicities are completely lacking (and that lots of non-existent people have the same dentist....)

  10. Christoph

    "If anything it's set a bar: your writing online must be GPT-2-level coherent – which is to say, not terribly coherent – or else you might be discarded as a bot"

    But can it imitate amanfromMars?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Rising Sun

      Methinks that imitating AM/FM is like losing at golf; you can't just do it, you also have to not seem to be trying, which takes even more skill.

      ...I just realized that a poorly handmade deepfake predecessor was that film's plot device.

      "Thanks, brain!" --Son Goku

      "No prahblum." --Son Goku's Brain

  11. nagyeger

    Usage rights?

    by generating fictitious people you can get past the problem of having to put faces in presentations without violating anyone's privacy.

    Anyone know what usage rights thispersondoesnotexist images are out there under? I just know I'm going to be asked if I suggest this to a few people.

    1. mark l 2 Silver badge

      Re: Usage rights?

      I guess you have to assume that the website owns the copyright since it doesn't state otherwise. Nothing in the image properties when you download them.

      I found that when you try to download the image you don't necessarily get the image you are after. when I downloaded the photo I got a different one saved than what was on screen, tried again and got a different one again. So it looks like it continues to generate them in the background even if you don't refresh the page. Even going to page info and then media in Firefox showed a different image each time.

      So screen shots appear to be the only way to get a copy of the images, which suggests they don't want you re-using them.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Usage rights?

        I found that when you try to download the image you don't necessarily get the image you are after. when I downloaded the photo I got a different one saved than what was on screen, tried again and got a different one again.

        I didn't have a problem saving them with Safari or Firefox on MacOS, both support "save to Downloads" via a right-click (and it saves the full size, not the scaled version it shows). Strange.

        That said, I agree with another commentard that the AI should go to SpecSavers and maybe SunHut to get some more frames and sunglasses in its database :)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Usage rights?

      That's quite an interesting question. They're computer generated, so could possibly fall under artistic creations depending on the interpretation of what "art" is (and I'm going to gently tiptoe away from that debate as I'll be here all week otherwise).

      That said, there is absolutely zero attempt to claim any ownership, and unless they log the creations before showing them it'll be hard to prove that an image actually originated there. Even the EXIF data in the images is about as empty as you can get, and the URL is empty too.

      As a matter of fact, the website itself is simply not there - all you get is the image. There's not even a proper HTML frame around it, if you look at the page source you'll see there isn't any.

  12. This post has been deleted by its author

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Animorphs?

    Like, those were a thing, a decade or few ago? Is this not what is being done with these fake "people" photos?

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like