We’ve seen AI pull off some mightily impressive deepfake faces recently. This one of Elon Musk’s mug on Dave’s in 2001: A Space Odyssey is surprisingly fitting, and this Freddie Mercury/Rami Malek mixup is one of the most realistic face swaps we’ve ever seen. And while the deepfakes themselves are freaky enough, once you’ve checked out this video of AI making complete fashion models out of nothing, a whole new set of disturbing possibilities may come to mind.
A company out of Tokyo, Japan, Data Grid Co., created the video of the fashion models multiplying like an out-of-control Brady Bunch. The models, which start out large enough to be seen in detail, seem to be about 75 percent believable. The clothes are certainly impressive, but there’s clearly some work that needs to be done with the faces and hands, which are swirled and distorted upon close inspection.
Data Grid Co. notes beneath the YouTube video that the models are generated using Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). GANs are neural networks that use a combination of a “discriminator” and “generator” to generate accurate datasets with very little initial data to go off of. In this instance, the discriminator has been programmed with real pictures of fashion models. The generator “looks” over the real examples of fashion models, then proceeds to produce countless attempts at copying the real models with 100 percent accuracy based on the patterns it’s identifying in the original pictures. Meanwhile, the discriminator is doing its best to eliminate fraudulent pictures created by the generator. These efforts combined make images that constantly improve in terms of how well they duplicate the original source images.
A great GANs explainer video by Packt Video.
According to Data Grid Co.’s site, the company wants to use the technology in a wide range of fields, but specifically notes this technology’s potential in advertising and modeling. And we’re going to go ahead and guess it’ll work for making even more realistic artificial actors in movies.
What do you think of this video of faux fashion models? Do you think your J.C. Penney Catalog is totally sus now? Let us know in the comments!
Images: 株式会社データグリッド