This person does not exist
When I see a photo, I know there is a person behind it. I may not know them, but I could imagine their lives, I could write a story how she takes her daughter to the kindergarten every morning, how she’s waiting for the bus. The faces tell a story, a whole background, faces tell me where you are from, what kinds of people you make friends with.
Of course, painters and graphic designers draw figures that don’t exist. Comic books are full of such people. You would probably recognize Batman in the crowd based on the drawings of him. But the usual graphic novel drawing lacks some features, they are not as accurate as a photo. There are hundreds of people on the Earth who look exactly like the original Batman drawing. Our brain fills out the blanks, it makes up certain details.
Simply drawing a person to find him can be a challenging task. Police have worked with specially trained graphic designers who could listen to the contradictory descriptions of a person and make a drawing that helps the police get the criminal. Phantom drawings are still easy to recognize. Some are hand drawn lacking facial expressions. Some are created with a tool. But you can always tell it’s not a real person, it can fit a hundred of people on the street.
Now artificial intelligence posed an interesting question to me. What am I doing when I see a photo of a face? I automatically assume it’s a living person, because real photos always depict real persons, even if distorted or photoshopped. When you visit the site This person does not exist, you’ll see a single portrait. No text, no menu, only a human face. When you refresh the page, you’ll be presented another portrait. They are quite diverse. You may see a young boy with a faint smile around his lips. Or it may be the portrait of a thoughtful old lady wrinkled face framed with white hair. The photo of the boy looks so real that you automatically tell his story imaginary story to yourself. Who is the old lady? She can’t be his grandma, she seems to be coming from a higher class. But they are not living persons. There is no human behind the face. These photos are only pixels generated by an algorithm.
This is a confusing experience. I didn’t know my mind is so active when seeing a face. And now it immediately engages in the same activity, then stops itself right away. Hey, don’t waste your time on making up stories, this face is a fake. It’s like being offered a plate of fake food that’s made of plastic, but looks exactly like a yummy burger with golden french fries. My brain automatically sends commands to different parts of my body, I sense the saliva collecting in my mouth. Hey, brain, don’t waste your time.
I spent the whole evening hitting refresh, my left thumb and index finger stiffened in their position pressing Ctrl-R. Faces kept coming and I couldn’t take my eyes away. They looked so real, every one of them. I wanted to find a flaw. I have to outsmart artificial intelligence before it outsmarts me. Phantom drawings are black-and-white with an empty expression, easy to spot. How can I distinguish between a real photo and one generated by a stupid machine? How can I avoid being fooled?
Let’s see if the faces are really diverse. Women and men come in equal amount. The age distribution seems a little skewed, most faces feel to be somewhere between 20 and 50, there are fewer children and old persons, but the AI seems to have no problem generating a baby face. Most faces smile, most look into the camera being aware of it. (I can’t stop myself describing it this way, but of course, there was no camera involved and no person being aware of it.) So they are faces posing for a photo which usually means a smile.
I keep refreshing the page and save some images to my hard drive. Faces that caught my attention for an inexplicable reason. I realize after a while that I haven’t seen a beautiful or handsome person. Refresh, refresh, refresh. It takes maybe twenty new photos until I see a woman I would call beautiful. I save her image and keep looking for another one. Hmm, maybe the previous one? No, it’s gone forever. Once you proceed, there is no way back. All faces are unique. Browsing them is like walking the streets of a big city, you catch sight of a beauty for a second and you’ll never see her again.
Are these images generated on the spot whenever I refresh the page for a new photo? Or is there a huge database of thousands of pre-generated photos and I’m presented a random one every time? I can’t tell, I haven’t seen the same face twice.
After saving the images of some beauties (and of a couple of handsome men to keep balance of genders), I look for other attributes. Are there any ugly faces? Or to be more neutral, does the algorithm generate faces that are as far from the average as the beautiful ones, but in the opposite direction? The distribution feels the same as in a big city. Most faces are average, the extremes are rare.
Wait, what’s that? Here comes a face that looks unnatural. I got you, AI, you made a mistake. Every now and then I can see a photo that has a flaw that clearly shows the limitations of the software. Sometimes it’s only a strange hole above the ear, sometimes it’s a more dramatic distortion. But they are so far and between that it doesn’t comfort me. The AI wins, I surrender. I go to bed with an uneasy feeling I can’t give a name to. A part of reality I took for granted is not so real anymore.
