What’s it about?
That's right, as its name indicates, this website uses artificial intelligence to generate a data bank full of faces of people who do not really exist. With a simple click, the Generate New Face button will come up with a hyper-realistic -yet entirely fictional- face of a person based on a neural network algorithm, within a particularly equitable and respectful variety of each gender, culture and ethnicity.
You can get access to this AI face generator for free, and each of these images is also free to use, serving as resource for various types of industries or for those users curious to find out how far AI technology is reaching nowadays. Its content is presented randomly, and the experience of waiting for the next portrait can be as eerie as it is captivating, even more so when realizing that this unknown person smiling at us does not exist in real life.
So don’t worry, you won’t find your uncle.
From men to women, from long-haired ladies to bald excentric gentlemen, This Person Does Not Exist provides us with a truly incredible variety of faces that we could never call fake. Its website, easy to access and intuitive to use, even contains several categories in which to search for our new synthetic friend: we could be surprised by the smart look of a mustachioed fifty-year-old, the suggestive smile of a young girl, the beauty of a black person, the intriguing grimace of an Asian grandfather, a Latino teenager, or the tender smile of a freckled child.
Each one presented in its fresh rectangular portrait.
How does it work?
Each of these images is generated using a specific type of artificial intelligence called Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). This novel system is made up of two neural networks -a generator and a discriminator- that work simultaneously: one is dedicated to scanning and creating new patterns by recognizing images of real human faces, while the second network works against this newly generated and synthetics patterns, judging and detailing the possible errors and improvements necessary to achieve such a believable result. Through a process of trial and error, this technology improves itself until it reaches new heights in the intersection between reality and fiction.
Introduced by Ian Goodfellow and his colleagues in 2014, it was not until Nvidia -a company renowned for its graphics processing units (GPUs)- took the lead in GANs technology that its development was enhanced thanks to Nvidia’s prior knowledge and admirable willingness to help new industries and deeply impact society.
What can it be used for?
The usefulness of this new technology can be as varied as it is surprising, it could even be of help in future activities still unknown today.
For the ever-growing gaming and entertainment industry, Nvidia's GANs are a very valuable resource when it comes to generating facial features for specific characters in its universe, without compromising the identity of real people and enhancing the game’s own fantasy and identity. Game developers will undoubtedly find in GANs technology a strategic ally for the challenge of creating increasingly believable worlds.
On the other hand, this type of technology based on constant self-improvement plays an increasingly important role in the health care industry, where it provides a very useful tool for creating medical images. When making a diagnosis, the medical professional of the present and the future will find in the generation of synthetic data a tool that increasingly narrows the margin of error and helps the work of disease prevention.
Furthermore, GANs technology opens an indefinite but hopeful path for any creative development in art and design. Any future image artist must be increasingly aware of this technical advance that changes the very nature of their work and enables new possible forms of expression.
Ethical Considerations
However, not everything related to this new technology may seem innocent to us. Its use also implies an ethical dimension that appeals to the commitment of users to not use this technology for dishonest or even illegal purposes. Recent developments like DeepFake demonstrate the complexities that tools like this can bring to social life. In this case, the company makes itself available for any complaints or comments about inappropriate uses.
At the moment, thispersondoesnotexist.tools does not offer a customization service nor does it allow its images to be altered. The customization of images borders on the identity of each person, while this tool offers the until now impossible opportunity to meet, in some way, someone new—or at least his face.
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