Hindustan Times (Jalandhar)

This column does not exist

A paean to going down the rabbit hole of bot-generated fun

- Over the moon about something that’s still under the radar? Tell me at rachel.lopez@htlive.com

If you haven’t already, check out ThisPerson­DoesNotExi­st.com. The site displays a new human face every time you refresh the page. You might encounter a curlyhaire­d young woman, a bespectacl­ed gentleman, a freckled brown granny, a black teen grinning like he’s in a toothpaste ad.

Here’s the catch: none of these people is real; each is a composite drawn from features in photo databases and patched together by artificial intelligen­ce. Scary, right?

When the site debuted last year, there was understand­able fascinatio­n and fear.

Phillip Wang, a former software engineer with Uber, created it in his free time using recently released StyleGAN software. The programme was already being used to create realistic-looking and sounding DeepFake videos, but Wang’s just-for-fun site had taken the fraud out of the fakery. Viewers could enjoy AI’s version of reality without compromisi­ng their own.

And so spawned a parallel universe of bot-generated fun. Wang’s next project was This Cat Does Not Exist, which generates fictitious fe lines( because what else would stir up half the internet so effectivel­y?). The results aren’t as good – cats are too furry, too varied in their species and altogether too catty to conform to the software’s data requiremen­ts. So the cats end up with odd proportion­s or features.

It’s easier to fall for some of the sites inspired by his original one. This Rental Does not Exist is a spoof ong lammed up AirBnB-type home rentals and the flowery phrasing typical of such listings. White curtains fly into a sea breeze, fruit bowls rest on cane tables, an Art Deco lampshade is invariably in one corner. They’re all just four minutes from the Metro station, quiet on weekends or have luxuriousl­y large bedrooms. Turns out, there are only so many ways to sell a space after all.

It’s harder to invent a word. Shakespear­e could do it, JK Rowling too. But can AI? This Word Does Not Exist is generating some surprising­ly believable babble, with definition­s too. What’s a snowwarp? It’s the extent of precipitat­ion compared to the extent of snow or snowmass for a year. Could you get inosititis? It’s a fictitious infection in which a bacterium becomes prominent in the stomach or intestine. Could we one day use déliterée? It’s a made-up word for an award for literary achievemen­t or a stellar exhibition.

Imgflip.com has a mildly funny AI-based meme generator.

You might like This Waifu Does Not Exist and This Fur son a Does Not Exist, which create man ga and furry humanoid iterations. But that’s just fantasy from fantasy, a twiceremov­ed un-reality that would have Plato in a twist.

As more sites deploy AI creatively, there’s even a master site tracking them all: This X Does Not Exist.

It’s all so unreal, perhaps I’m making it all up. You’ll have to confirm if This Column Does Not Exist.

 ??  ?? Each face is a composite drawn from features in photo databases and patched together by artificial intelligen­ce.
Each face is a composite drawn from features in photo databases and patched together by artificial intelligen­ce.

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