# This person does not exist **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 15, 2019, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-person-does-not-exist/829569 "2019-02-15T02:59:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2019, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-person-does-not-exist/829569/1 "2019-02-15T02:59:30Z")
An interesting web site - AI generated, photorealistic human portraits. Refresh the page to get a new image. > **[Stability AI](https://stability.ai/)** > > AI by the people for the people. We are building the foundation to activate humanity's potential. Article [here](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/7xn4wy/this-website-uses-ai-to-generate-the-faces-of-people-who-dont-exist). ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2019, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-person-does-not-exist/829569/2 "2019-02-15T03:47:46Z")
Wow. That’s deep — really. Brings up all sorts of inchoate thoughts about identity and human individuality. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2019, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-person-does-not-exist/829569/3 "2019-02-15T04:00:19Z")
2200 more and James Cameron can start work on “Titanic II.” ETA: My mistake, there might already be that many, if not more. ---
**Author:** ![Dag\_Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@Dag\_Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dag_Otto)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2019, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-person-does-not-exist/829569/4 "2019-02-15T04:00:32Z")
Seems that there are varying values for “photorealistic”. The first one I saw was grotesque and make me think - Virtual Mr. Potato Head! ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2019, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-person-does-not-exist/829569/5 "2019-02-15T04:16:05Z")
I can’t put my finger on why, but there seems to be a lot of androgyny going on there. Many of the photos seemed to be amalgams of male and female facial parts, and except for cues like long hair and jewelry (for women) and short hair and facial hair follicles (for men) I wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2019, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-person-does-not-exist/829569/6 "2019-02-15T04:16:09Z")
There’s a photo of me on there! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2019, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-person-does-not-exist/829569/7 "2019-02-15T04:50:31Z")
> [@Tibby](#): > > There’s a photo of me on there! :eek: I thought that was you. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2019, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-person-does-not-exist/829569/8 "2019-02-15T05:09:56Z")
> [@Tibby](#): > > There’s a photo of me on there! :eek: [So, how are you dealing with not existing?](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/aqom9e/thispersondoesnotexistcom/) ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2019, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-person-does-not-exist/829569/9 "2019-02-15T11:16:06Z")
> [@Kamino\_Neko](#): > > [So, how are you dealing with not existing?](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/aqom9e/thispersondoesnotexistcom/) Jorge Luis Borges would have liked that post. And the site itself — a sort of Library of Babel of individuals (rather than books), where you “wander” desperately, pointlessly, hopelessly trying to find that someone you recognize, or that someone you love. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2019, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-person-does-not-exist/829569/10 "2019-02-15T12:20:20Z")
The first picture I saw I would have sworn was Michelle Obama. I had to open another tab and image search for a picture of her in order to realize it wasn’t. I refreshed the page and there was a picture of some famous child actor, or so I thought. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2019, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-person-does-not-exist/829569/11 "2019-02-15T18:52:20Z")
> [@Tibby](#): > > There’s a photo of me on there! :eek: Tibby, or not Tibby? [The same system](https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NVIDIA-StyleGAN-Open-Source) can generate other things, [such as](http://aiweirdness.com/post/182633984547/gancats) [cats](https://www.livescience.com/64771-ai-generated-cats-from-hell.html). ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2019, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-person-does-not-exist/829569/12 "2019-02-15T19:11:09Z")
> [@Dag\_Otto](#): > > Seems that there are varying values for “photorealistic”. The first one I saw was grotesque and make me think - Virtual Mr. Potato Head! The skin texture looks odd on most of them, especially in the forehead area ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2019, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-person-does-not-exist/829569/13 "2019-02-15T19:28:17Z")
The intersection of hair and glasses is sometimes a trainwreck. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2019, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-person-does-not-exist/829569/14 "2019-02-16T03:03:38Z")
I find the misses more interesting than the hits. A lot of them seem to have a funhouse-mirror distorted image of the same face splattered against the edge of the picture. Shoulders and torso are sometimes scrambled, or absent. And one I saw had a pair of glasses propped up on top of her head, except that they were distorted in ways that glasses never would be. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2019, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-person-does-not-exist/829569/15 "2019-02-16T07:05:56Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > … [such as](http://aiweirdness.com/post/182633984547/gancats) [cats](https://www.livescience.com/64771-ai-generated-cats-from-hell.html). AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH :eek::eek::eek::eek: ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2019, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-person-does-not-exist/829569/16 "2019-02-16T10:02:21Z")
It’s interesting, because I’ve been doing 3D images for a time, and I see that I now notice a lot of things that would have escaped me before. Anyway, that’s an amusing link, but, whatever could be the method they use to generate portraits (they seem to be composite), most pictures have significant flaws, and a number have terrible flaws (like an eyebrow on the forehead, a bit of beard on one side of a “female” face, a significantly deformed chin, etc…) The most realistic tend to be those of young people, because of course a smooth skin is easier to imitate than an older one. Of course, there are tons of pictures out there that are more realistic than this, the originality here being the generation of so many different faces. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2019, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-person-does-not-exist/829569/17 "2019-02-16T14:32:41Z")
I chose a random photo from that site and added a little animation … strictly in the interest of science, of course. I may be spending a bit less time on the SDMB [for a while.](https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNtwQrMM9dwOH4N08yaxR-k35BQJ5rdL3dT87dF0RcKX64GiSIGjVoe3HfygUixAQ/photo/AF1QipPzGwOCdlFvM6_2vareaghTBdOOl5U6Vfqf4F7m?key=enFxMXFWNDk5cFZrXzlNN284RlFuT3J5R0lWS3RR) ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2019, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-person-does-not-exist/829569/18 "2019-02-16T17:25:40Z")
It seems like in some pictures the AI sort of peppers in stuff like wrinkles or skin blemishes in a weird way. Also I guess AI doesn’t know about braces or tooth whitening because none of the people have straight teeth or bright white teeth they all seemed stain but in the same generic way, also all the people seem to have a midline discrepancy sort of like Tom Cruise, weird. There definitely were some faces though that looked extremely realistic. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2019, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-person-does-not-exist/829569/19 "2019-02-16T17:33:40Z")
Is there a page that explains how it’s making the images? There was one of a woman wearing glasses. The image even had the distortion behind the lenses, where the eyes are squished in, the way they are when you wear thick glasses for nearsightedness. That was a nice touch. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2019, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-person-does-not-exist/829569/20 "2019-02-16T17:52:03Z")
> [@Defensive\_Indifference](#): > > Is there a page that explains how it’s making the images? [Here’s the link.](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1812.04948.pdf) You can also [download the software](https://github.com/NVlabs/stylegan). It is done with a neural-network architecture they describe as a “style-based generator”, which incorporates an intermediate “style” layer they can use to more easily get at features such as hairstyle, pose, face shape, eyeglasses, coloring, lighting, etc. Like other neural networks, it is initially trained on a sample set of images. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-person-does-not-exist/829569.md?page=2)