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posted by Fnord666 on Monday September 23 2019, @05:37AM   Printer-friendly
from the welcome-to-the-uncanny-valley dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

It’s getting easier and easier to use AI to generate convincing-looking, yet entirely fake, pictures of people. Now, one company wants to find a use for these photos, by offering a resource of 100,000 AI-generated faces to anyone that can use them — royalty free. Many of the images look fake but others are difficult to distinguish from images licensed by stock photo companies.

The project’s Product Hunt page lists Icons8 product designer Konstantin Zhabinskiy as the creator. Icons8 is a designer marketplace for icons and photographs. The AI-produced images are intended to be used as design elements in anything from presentations to websites and mobile apps. Everything is free to use with link attribution back to generated.photos.

[...]Zhabinskiy is keen to emphasize that the AI used to generate these images was trained using data shot in-house, rather than using stock media or scraping photographs from the internet. “Such an approach requires thousands of hours of labor, but in the end, it will certainly be worth it!” exclaims an Icons8 blog post.

There are valid concerns about technology that’s able to generate convincing-looking fakes like these at scale. This project is trying to create images that make life easier for designers, but the software could one day be used for all sorts of malicious activity.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday September 23 2019, @06:21AM (3 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 23 2019, @06:21AM (#897434) Journal

    Everything is free to use with link attribution

    So, how are they going to capitalize on this? There is most definitely an angle here. Stuff will be free, until it's not? Reminds me of those audio and video licenses that were free, but were never open sourced. "Rights holders" were just looking for an angle, some way to extract money from the system. The only thing that stopped them was, equal and better ideas came along, instead. You can't extort money for a resource when there are a dozen alternative resources that equal or exceed your own.

    Why are there 100,000? In theory, at least, the AI can continue to generate images indefinitely. There could be a trillion of these images archived, limited only by storage space. Or, the AI could generate according to specific request parameters. Maybe I'm running an ad campaign in Bolivia, and I want some very specific features mixed into the images, so that I can target some specific clans, tribes, or regional characteristics. More, maybe I want to EXCLUDE some specific characteristics that don't apply to my target audience?

    I expect that someone will soon offer something similar, under creative commons licensing, or similar.

    Funny thing - nearly all of the generated images appear to be looking directly at you, the viewer. Not all, but nearly all.

    A TOS a couple pages long - https://www.producthunt.com/tos [producthunt.com]

    Privacy policy about the same - https://www.producthunt.com/privacy [producthunt.com]

    I searched for a CoC and found this - https://www.producthunt.com/posts/the-code-of-conduct-generator [producthunt.com]

    I guess, long story short, I can foresee unwanted entanglements resulting from using their stuff. I'm not seeing a lot of "transparency" on that site.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday September 23 2019, @08:10AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 23 2019, @08:10AM (#897458) Journal

      So, how are they going to capitalize on this?

      1. pay-what-you-want; *or*
      2. same way Linux/BSD distros are capitalized *or*
      3. patreon/buy-me-a-beer style (see also https://github.com/opencollective/opencollective) [github.com]

      I guess, long story short, I can foresee unwanted entanglements resulting from using their stuff. I'm not seeing a lot of "transparency" on that site.

      If they could do it, many others can (not that I care)

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by RamiK on Monday September 23 2019, @10:21AM (1 child)

      by RamiK (1813) on Monday September 23 2019, @10:21AM (#897487)

      They'll collect usage statistic / feedback to train their AI to better the face generation until one day they get good enough to license it for games, films and large advertisement productions. And as with all free products and services, the market dumping effect removes much of the competition from the board game until there's so few players they'd be able to control the pricing to no small extent.

      --
      compiling...
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @12:06PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @12:06PM (#897516)

        They'll collect usage statistic / feedback to train their AI to better the face generation until one day

        ... they realize hacker 4chan is their main user with weird selection criteria [googleusercontent.com]

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @06:24AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @06:24AM (#897437)

    Zhabinskiy is keen to emphasize that the AI used to generate these images was trained using data shot in-house, rather than using stock media or scraping photographs from the internet.

    But if that had been done using scraped images, would anybody be able to determine that or successfully sue over it? The value of stock images is that they look generic. A big enough dataset of copyrighted images paired with a transformative algorithm should muddy the waters.

    I don't think it's all bleak for stock image companies. They can generate their own millions of AI images, copyright them all, and use other algorithms to do better tagging on images so users can find what they want faster. They could even generate new images on the fly using a text description from the customer. Each new preview image will be copyrighted and stored.

    • (Score: 2) by driverless on Monday September 23 2019, @08:32PM

      by driverless (4770) on Monday September 23 2019, @08:32PM (#897781)

      I think I dated 32017 once. She was OK for the first few dates, but got kinda weird on me after that. I think she lived in her car.

      Oh, and if you happen to encounter 6174 in the street some time, run! Don't ask just run.

  • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday September 23 2019, @06:36AM (3 children)

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Monday September 23 2019, @06:36AM (#897439) Journal

    Oh my! [clutches pearls] We must outlaw butter knives!

    You ever gonna give up on that crap?

    The only issue here is what this does to the stock photo business. Too bad for them...

    --
    La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday September 23 2019, @03:36PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 23 2019, @03:36PM (#897602) Journal

      Outlaw computers.

      You do realize, I hope, that computers can be used to commit crimes.

      Yes, really.

      Just ask anybody who has been hit over the head with a laptop computer.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 2) by EvilSS on Monday September 23 2019, @03:45PM

      by EvilSS (1456) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 23 2019, @03:45PM (#897615)

      Oh my! [clutches pearls] We must outlaw butter knives!

      You joke but... https://i.imgur.com/VhVQqQB.jpg [imgur.com]

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @04:06PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @04:06PM (#897631)

      outlaw outlaws?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @12:05PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @12:05PM (#897514)

    Will the most downloadeds become Fake Celebrities. Maybe they will be taken from the free tier and put in the dollar bin.

    The current stock photos industry will claim unfair competition or will become customers to this new provider.

    • (Score: 2) by BsAtHome on Monday September 23 2019, @02:50PM

      by BsAtHome (889) on Monday September 23 2019, @02:50PM (#897566)

      And then, the fake celebrities will sue all you for copyright infringement. Even the fakes have rights! Just like companies are persons, fakes are persons too and soon will develop real feelings. Soon: "Don't anthropomorphize the computer and its creations, (s)he doesn't like it and will sue you for all you have."

      Even if that sounds over the top... Reality amazes me every time, just wait for it.

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