Technology company Nvidia just released this video and a paper detailing a new method of generating unique faces in which researchers pit two neural networks against each other.
In 2015, Google released DeepDream, a bonkers, art-generating neural net users put to work rendering everything from disturbing dog collages to even more disturbing psychedelic porn. DeepDream may have just been the prelude to less aesthetically off-putting but much more significant applications of the slightly creepy technology—such as generating photorealistic, high-definition images of people who never existed.
Graphics card and electronics manufacturer Nvidia released a paper on Friday showing off a new method of generating unique faces via a generative adversarial network (GAN), a class of algorithm where researchers pair two competing neural networks against each other. In a GAN, one of the two neural networks is put to a generative function (like rendering images or trying to solve a problem) while the other is put in an adversarial role, challenging the first’s results. The intent is that the generative neural network will produce a superior result by bouncing its ideas off its adversarial counterpart.
