Who you going to believe, that fresh face or your lyin’ eyes?

“ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com uses AI to generate endless fake faces,” By James Vincent over at The Verge shows how that question is only going to get more complicated.

The ability of AI to generate fake visuals is not yet mainstream knowledge, but a new website — ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com — offers a quick and persuasive education.

The site is the creation of Philip Wang, a software engineer at Uber, and uses research released last year by chip designer Nvidia to create an endless stream of fake portraits. The algorithm behind it is trained on a huge dataset of real images, then uses a type of neural network known as a generative adversarial network (or GAN) to fabricate new examples.

“Each time you refresh the site, the network will generate a new facial image from scratch,” wrote Wang in a Facebook post. He added in a statement to Motherboard: “Most people do not understand how good AIs will be at synthesizing images in the future.”

The underlying AI framework powering the site was originally invented by a researcher named Ian Goodfellow. Nvidia’s take on the algorithm, named StyleGAN, was made open source recently and has proven to be incredibly flexible. Although this version of the model is trained to generate human faces, it can, in theory, mimic any source. Researchers are already experimenting with other targets. including anime characters, fonts, and graffiti.

The key is all in the algorithms, and opens up almost endless creative possibilities. It also opens Pandora’s Box for folks with nefarious intentions:

Then there are the downsides. As we’ve seen in discussions about deepfakes (which use GANs to paste people’s faces onto target videos, often in order to create non-consensual pornography), the ability to manipulate and generate realistic imagery at scale is going to have a huge effect on how modern societies think about evidence and trust. Such software could also be extremely useful for creating political propaganda and influence campaigns.

In other words, ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com is just the polite introduction to this new technology. The rude awakening comes later.

Please do be so kind as to share this post.

There were some wondering if President Trump would sign the newly passed spending bill designed to avert government shutdown, or declare a national emergency for border funding. Apparently he will do both.

CNN:

Speaking on the Senate floor Thursday, McConnell sought to reassure lawmakers unsure of the President’s position before taking a vote on the plan, which falls short of providing the $5 billion in border wall funding the President had demanded.

“He has indicated he is prepared to sign the bill. He will also be issuing a national emergency declaration at the same time,” McConnell said. “I’ve indicated to him that I’m going to support the national emergency declaration. So for all of my colleagues, the President will sign the bill, we will be voting on it shortly.”

It provided reassurance amid questions about the President’s support for the deal, which was struck by a bipartisan panel of negotiators. Aides had said earlier Thursday they were concerned Trump would reject the spending compromise — a major shift from earlier this week when officials indicated privately that he would.

Advisers said Trump had grown increasingly concerned about what is contained in the 1,100-page legislation that was released late Wednesday evening.

The National Emergency declaration will almost certainly bring both Congressional and legal action against it. Stay tuned.

Please do be so kind as to share this post.

Granted, most elderly people are not still living, let alone driving, at 97. Or coming off a crash that involved injuries to another party. Or happen to be the husband of the Queen of England.

ABC News:

Prince Philip has decided to stop driving at the age of 97, less than a month after he was involved in a collision that left two women injured, Buckingham Palace said Saturday.

The palace said in a statement that “after careful consideration,” Queen Elizabeth II’s husband “has taken the decision to voluntarily surrender his driving license.”

Philip was behind the wheel of a Land Rover near the royal family’s Sandringham estate in eastern England when he smashed into another car on Jan. 17. Philip had to be helped out of his overturned vehicle but wasn’t injured. Two women in the other car were injured, though not seriously, and a 9-month-old baby boy was unhurt.

Philip was photographed driving again two days later, without a seatbelt. Police said they offered him “suitable words of advice” after that.

The prince was not charged in the crash. Police said he and the other driver were both given breath tests for alcohol and passed.
In a letter of apology to one of the injured women, Philip said he was dazzled by the sun when he pulled onto a main road near the royal retreat, 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of London.

He told Emma Fairweather, who suffered a broken wrist in the crash, that “I can only imagine that I failed to see the car coming, and I am very contrite about the consequences.” The letter was published by a newspaper.

There is no upper age limit for licensing drivers in Britain, although drivers over 70 are required to renew their licenses every three years and tell authorities about any medical conditions that might raise safety issues.

While it is an extreme example, plenty of elderly people who are not the Duke of Edinburgh are faced with life-altering decisions when it comes to their transportation. For people who have been independent for many decades of life, the decision of when they are no longer able to drive can be very difficult. It is not just the practical side of being able to come and go, but also the mental hurdle of losing a piece of freedom and ability to control your own life. Transportation is a debate that is often swallowed up in theory, analytics, and charts, but like many things in our lives it very much affects real life, everyday people in almost immeasurable ways.

Elderly drivers is a debate with many questions, and no easy answers, but with one certainty: It is not going away. Time waits for no one, royal or not, and is undefeated.

Please do be so kind as to share this post.

If you had a reaction to that Michelob Ultra commercial where Zoe Kravitz goes soundlab with tapping, whispers, and pouring a beer, there is a reason for that: it was designed that way.

ASMR, or “autonomous sensory meridian response,” has been around for close to a decade, but finally made its way into the mainstream with a Michelob Ultra commercial during the Super Bowl Sunday night. The ad featured actress Zoe Kravitz whispering softly into a microphone, tapping her nails against the bottle, all to get us to buy some beer.

It’s a big trend right now, and there are countless videos on YouTube of people whispering directly into microphones and tapping their fingers on things to try and stimulate an ASMR response for viewers.

ASMR was first coined in 2010 and has since gathered thousands of faithful followers online. Content creators on YouTube, for example, upload hours-long videos of them stroking the camera’s lens with makeup brushes, drawing with crayons, drumming their fingers against leather and creating other similar tingly sounds that users claim help them sleep and calm down.

Everyone’s triggers are different: some may ooze with satisfaction at the sound of a page turning, others from a laugh — and others may not experience ASMR at all.

But some academics say it’s not just the satisfaction of this brain massage that makes the experience so special. It may actually be good for something. A UK study says participants reported ASMR provided temporary relief for those suffering from depression and chronic pain, while others said it helped them deal with stress.

So yes, a lot of people find ASMR relaxing. Others find it horrifying. Or at the very least it freaks them out, like the Michelob Ultra ad featuring Kravitz did

In my household, it was found to be annoying, mockable, and just plain bizarre. But science says it works differently for different folks, so YMMV. So, what say you?

Please do be so kind as to share this post.