
AI tech generates entire bodies of people who don't exist - mmastrac
https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/ai-tech-generates-entire-bodies-of-people-who-don-t-exist-1.4405165
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gdubs
It’s fascinating how in the 80s and 90s we imagined virtual worlds being
populated by 3D graphics built on modeled / digitized wireframes — and then
this technology comes out of nowhere in the past decade. The holodeck seemed
so implausible in its ability to just synthesize things. Doesn’t seem so
implausible anymore. “Computer: Sherlock Holmes, in his study, speaking with
Albert Einstein.”

~~~
colllectorof
Stop peddling meaningless hype. Current 3D rendering technology is lightyears
ahead[1] of these AI toys and you can trivially parametrize it. Many games
already do. So if you want to generate people, _you already can do that_ while
having full control, instead of some glitchy sliders.

Something genuinely useful might, perhaps, be achieved by applying GANs to
parameters of those 3D models to allow easier customization, but I haven't
seen any work in that direction.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ9mb3Jylb0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ9mb3Jylb0)

~~~
echelon
> Stop peddling meaningless hype.

Your comment has value, but your tone is unnecessarily harsh. Would you talk
to a coworker like this?

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areoform
While AI models might replace catalogue models for small labels that are
starting out (maybe) and for e-commerce companies (definitely). I highly doubt
it that they will replace real models for large companies and fashion
boutiques now or ever. Because what people (women _and_ men) are buying is
aspiration wrapped in dead plant fibers. The reason why I buy a dress from
Hervé Leger is because I want to look like old school Crawford making body-con
a thing in the ‘90s
[https://media.glamour.com/photos/56959302d9dab9ff41b2a79b/ma...](https://media.glamour.com/photos/56959302d9dab9ff41b2a79b/master/w_1600%2Cc_limit/fashion-2015-09-cindy-
crawford-black-herve-leger-dress-1996-main.jpg) and make the painful process
of getting into that shape and look seem “easy” while doing it.

Fashion isn’t about looking good in of itself. It’s about social proof-of-
work. Knowing what to wear and pulling it off isn’t easy. It’s the raison
d’être of the multi-billion dollar fashion and fitness industries. Women eat
grass all day everyday and go on ridiculous juice cleanses while contorting
their body into shapes that would put a pretzel to shame. If the world endures
so much pain to look effortlessly good, Why should manufacturers be allowed to
forego the pain? If the root of aspiration is making the impossible look like
a breeze, then why would anyone want to buy from a computer generated perfect
model that never had to feel the pull of a difficult stretch and stare in the
mirror with guilty eyes?

The suspension of disbelief necessary for the social economy to function
crumbled as soon as something is too perfect. Like Instagram photos. It’s not
cool to slap on a filter anymore and stage a perfect photo. It’s too easy now.
Just like Prisma was. What’s cool is to put in the work and make something
imperfect so that everyone knows that you put in the effort and looked
unflappably blasé while doing it.

Most models that are hired today are hired partly on their social presence.
Having an audience, even a micro-audience, is essential for getting high paid
gigs, because brands aren’t just selling the look; they’re selling the whole
package associated with the look. Women like to buy from other women (and men
like James Charles) whom they can aspire to. Tweens and teens want to look
like the models on tik-tok. Young-adults and grown women want to look like
their favorite YouTuber and Instagram celeb. They all want to participate in
making something cool happen with their friends.

All of this and more is intrinsically social and human.

All of this and more means that as long as humans buy from other humans,
brands will hire models to appeal to what’s most human; sexy, sexy crazy-
making envy.

~~~
whytaka
Another vote for agree and disagree.

Take for example Japan - the land of anime girls on every piece of
advertising. How much would the demand for human models expand if illustrated
characters were not an alternative?

There's a scarcity in the type of human beauty that's sought after by the
fashion industry. What if that scarcity didn't exist?

If people grow up with this new economic model of beauty and scarcity, maybe
it would change the landscape of fashion entirely.

~~~
asutekku
I’m posting this message from a local train in rural japan. The sides are
plastered with ads but nowhere where i look at can i see anime girls.

While i know few instances where they exist, that’s just not the reality in
japan. Akihabara is as much of a japan as Silicon Valley is Usa. At certain
level yes but on the other hand not at all.

~~~
whytaka
I am Japanese. It was hyperbolic but not that much.

~~~
asutekku
It was pretty damn hyperbolic. I seriously haven’t seen that much of an anime
advertisements anywhere except near konbinis and stores related to them.

There might be an collaboration with some anime and product once in a while
but from my experience (and this is an experience of an foreigner living in
japan) it’s far from norm.

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Nition
Is this really generating anything new or is it essentially just morphing
between existing photos that it's been trained on?

It would be interesting to take some of these GAN demos and write a utility
where for each output, have it find the closest-matching training input, and
see how similar it is.

~~~
Iv
Typically these animations that look like morphings are generated by auto-
encoders. Contrary to automatically generated morphings, you'll notice that
all intermediate person is realistic.

I don't think GAN work that way (I haven't followed it last year though). My
understanding is that a GAN simply tries to determine if an image is generated
or authentic. I suppose they used one there.

One way to do what you propose would be to plot all the training pictures in
the kernel space of the autoencoder and match the closest one to the generated
picture.

~~~
tzakrajs
The intermediates are not realistic. There are many artifacts and they are
obscured by the small, lossy video.

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Tharkun
I'm sure this could have applications in porn as well. Want to cater to
someone's specific kink? Just generate it.

~~~
jjjensen90
I do wonder if we'll ever reach a liberal enough society to be OK with
machine-generated porn of all types, especially those taboo or illegal now
(child pornography, sadism, zoophilia, etc). I could foresee it being banned
before it even gets commercialized, which in my opinion would be unfortunate
because I could see it as the methadone of porn to the "real stuff's" heroin.

~~~
mirimir
That's already illegal in the US:[0]

> Child pornography under federal law is defined as any visual depiction of
> sexually explicit conduct involving a minor (someone under 18 years of age).
> Visual depictions include photographs, videos, digital or computer generated
> images indistinguishable from an actual minor, and images created, adapted,
> or modified, but appear to depict an identifiable, actual minor.

But that's not so in Japan. So one ought take care when torrenting Japanese
films in the US.

0)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_pornography_laws_in_the_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_pornography_laws_in_the_United_States#Definition_of_child_pornography_under_federal_law)

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acconrad
would this mean that outside of runway models, you wouldn't need models to
showcase your clothing anymore since you can just "wrap" your clothes over
these AI humans?

~~~
keenmaster
Exactly. If you're Gap and have a lineup with thousands of articles of
clothing, why would you go through the trouble of procuring models? You have
to deal with modeling agencies, photographers, set managers, etc... When the
AI gets good enough, it will be even better than the alternative. It will
serve ads showing only your body type. Maybe the models will even have....your
face.

~~~
kro92kfmrzz
It could lead to more than just putting casual models out of work. Fewer
stylists and designers would be needed.

Let the AI generate the color patterns (sticking with Gap as an example, it
might retain their chosen /size as constraints) and boom, on demand styling

~~~
telchar
Not to mention you wouldn't need photoshop anymore to give the models
unrealistic proportions. Adopt this system and proudly declare that you don't
photoshop the models! Like fat-free soda.

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harigov
They can use this technology to generate a model to fit a particular user
profile. Filter bubbles are going to get even better! Or maybe they can ask
user to upload his photo and feed that as a prior to the model so it can
generate visuals of that person wearing different dresses. That would be cool!

~~~
genema
That would be neat. Imagine going to a site, adding some photos of yourself
and seeing all the clothes as they would look on you based on your actual
dimensions. You'd never have to wonder if something would look good on you. I
imagine this would save a ton of shipping costs on returns.

~~~
simiones
The AI showed here is not even a step in that direction. If you want photo-
realistic images of how a piece of clothing would look on your body you need:

\- very accurate measurements of your body

\- a very accurate representation of the materials used in that piece of
clothing, including weight, tensile strength etc.

\- a very accurate physics simulation matching the materials to your body
measurements

The technology showcased here does nothing similar. It could perhaps generate
pictures of what someone who looks sort of similar to your general body shape,
as seen in your pictures, looks in clothes. It would be no better than what
you currently have: look at the picture, and try to guess how well that fits
your actual body.

Even worse, you would completely miss details like "the material is very
stretchy, it looks good on the model's abs but it might look bad on my belly
fat" because the AI would NOT be doing a simulation of how that clothing
actually fits a human body - it's always producing an idealized simulation.

Edit: and to make this clear, I'm not saying that "the AI can't do that _yet_
". I'm saying that the technique they are using can't achieve the goal you are
talking about. There is nowhere near enough detail in pictures of clothing to
get the kind of simulation you are looking for.

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1k
Amazing! This pretty much enables clothing brands to generate extremely
targeted ads on the fly. Models can have similar body shape, hair style, skin
colour to the user. Based on past photos the advertiser can figure out
preferred colours, patterns and possibly even styles.

~~~
vidarh
"Mirrors" in a store display that shows the clothes on "you". And conveniently
adjusts your figure...

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rand84545
This makes me think about descartes' devil, if in such a short time we are
able to generate fake bodies. What if we could generate fake people (not
necessarily conscious but behaving as if they are.) in the future.

and with enough advances in brain/computer interfaces one could live a whole
life without meeting a real human . In fact, in that case, one wouldn't even
need accurate models since there would be no baseline to compare to.

Or maybe, we could implement surgical lenses that applies a filter on other
people generating a fake person.

You can basically, eliminate _ism(s) in the workplace by making everyone look
and sound the same.

People can pay to make their images in others' eyes different. Or one can pay
to make their spouse look like a their true love in their eyes.

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nate
Super interesting. How soon does this tech become the next 6-7 figure
instagram start? Curious if anyone can take this soon to build a following
around a fake beautiful person doing fake interesting things.

~~~
visarga
They are not something new, they've been in the news in the last 5 years. I'm
talking about GANs. Their 'father' Ian Goodfellow, has been recently poached
by Apple from Google. Even NVIDIA is into GANs [1]. Thousands of papers have
been written on the topic [2].

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOxxPcy5Gr4&t=56s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOxxPcy5Gr4&t=56s)

[2] [http://www.arxiv-
sanity.com/search?q=generative+adversarial+...](http://www.arxiv-
sanity.com/search?q=generative+adversarial+networks)

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hjk05
I never trust these unless they show the generated images next to the nearest
images in the training set. I have a strong suspicion that most just end up
being training set picks. Which invalidates the claim that these
people/models/whatever do not exist.

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bsanr
One wonders if the people whose photos were used to build this system were
compensated appropriately for their contribution. Something tells me that
royalties were not discussed.

Uncompensated, or grossly under-compensated, use of personal data for AI
systems is a serious issue that one no one seems to want to address.

~~~
RenRav
I think that every time I see these AI people generators. Do they release
their training sets of images, or is there even a way to check?

~~~
protomyth
I’m sure some lawyer will get the list in discovery the first time it comes a
bit close to a model’s look. I do wonder if they have the list, though.

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revskill
This is useful to generate models for clothing shop, or new fashion models.

More general: I'm not surprised to see some day, one AI bot could
automatically register a Twitter account, and have "real" conversations there.
One day, i might retweet their tweets, too.

~~~
squarefoot
Some day more and more movies will have virtual actors, possibly licensing
physical/voice tracts from known stars of the past. I would expect also
virtual music bands to be created as such.

~~~
genema
Or maybe they'll sort through all of the publicly available voice data for any
actor and start talking and sounding exactly like them. No need for any
actors.

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beautifulfreak
I always wonder about their use as movie extras. Does anyone here know what's
happening in the realm of movie-making? I had friends who did that as a lark,
but there were pay minimums, so I imagine it's a substantial expense to
studios.

~~~
cwkoss
Many crowd scenes are full CGI (can't tell at a distance) or composites of
many shots of smaller crowds stitched together.

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alok-g
News previously posted here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19806373](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19806373)

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fromthestart
I'll bet one could use GANs now to generate high res textures for 3D models.
Say for video games or other 3D renders. In various styles too.

BRB next startup idea.

~~~
lucidrains
This has already happened to some degree. The technique is so easy, kids out
there are using it to immediately renovate old games overnight
[https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/18/18311287/ai-upscaling-
alg...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/18/18311287/ai-upscaling-algorithms-
video-games-mods-modding-esrgan-gigapixel)

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turk73
The Stones nailed this in 1967 with "2000 Man":

Well my wife still respects me I really misused her I am having an affair With
a random computer

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p1necone
My arch enemy; tiny low res thumbnails strikes again!

~~~
p1necone
Although there is one higher res image available, which is better than usual.
Of course it's high enough res to show that there's visible artifacting. But
this is pretty impressive.

I wonder if an easy hack would be to train a second separate neural network to
clean up the kind of artifacting that you get out of the first neural
network...

~~~
pontifier
My understanding is that this is exactly how these images are generated. One
network makes the image, and another tries to find flaws... They both get
better together.

Here's the first 2 Google results for "GAN" meaning "Generative Adversarial
Network"

[https://skymind.ai/wiki/generative-adversarial-network-
gan](https://skymind.ai/wiki/generative-adversarial-network-gan)

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_adversarial_netwo...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_adversarial_network)

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nurettin
This would have marketing value if the network could somehow generate the
person wearing a particular clothing.

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devinplatt
Maybe someday instead of seeing models in a catalog I could see renderings of
myself in the clothing?

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Iv
[https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/](https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/) has
done that for a while...

~~~
Smaug123
Even with complete bodies? AFAIK, your link is only heads.

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shmageggy
On the importance of language: generating "entire bodies" is a different class
of problem then generating images of bodies

~~~
dang
The title is awkwardly worded, but I don't think it's so unclear. If the
people don't exist then neither do the bodies.

