A website has been set up to raise awareness of how realistic AI-generated fake people can be made to look.
On the site WhichFaceIsReal.com, users are asked to guess which of the two people on screen is real, with the other one being created using artificial intelligence.
After playing a couple rounds, it can be incredibly difficult to distinguish the realistic person from the incredibly lifelike fake face. It highlights that, thanks to AI, the gap between what is and isn’t real is becoming harder to distinguish.
The AI-generated fakes are created on the site using photorealistic face generation software from Nvidia called StyleGAN. One neural network attempts to generate artificial images indistinguishable from real photographs, with another neural network trying to tell the difference. The two networks train one another to produce images like the fake one you can see on the WhichFaceIsReal.com website.
The site was created by Jevin West and Carl Bergstrom who are academics at the University of Washington. They told The Verge that they created the website to educate people about how AI could undermine society’s trust in evidence.
Bergstrom said:
When a new technology like this comes along, the most dangerous period is when the technology is out there but the public isn’t aware of it, that’s when it can be used most effectively.
So what we’re trying to do is educate the public, make people aware that this technology is out there… Just like eventually most people were made aware that you can Photoshop an image.
They also listed that some of the easiest ways to spot an AI fake is thanks to hair that doesn’t quite look right, misaligned teeth and asymmetrical faces.
As well as software similar to the ones used on this website, technology can also be used to manipulate audio and video. If you’re able to tell the difference between the two images very easily, you may struggle to tell the difference in a few years time. As warned by West after speaking to The Verge, fakes will become ‘indistinguishable’ over time.
To find out if you can tell the difference between the fake and real images of people, be sure to play the game at WhichFaceIsReal.com.
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Matt Weston is a lover of electric cars, artificial intelligence and space. From Cornwall, he’s a UCLan graduate that still dreams of being a Formula One driver in the very near future. Previously work includes reporting for regional newspapers and freelance video for the International Business Times.