AI-Generated Faces

As if it weren’t difficult enough to discern what’s real and what’s fake when it comes to faces on the Internet, a new tool is now available that creates faces from thin air. But it’s not as bad as it sounds.

Unlike deepfakes that place someone’s face on another person’s body, or make people say and do things they never said or did, Generated Photos doesn’t let you copy another person’s image. Instead, it generates photos from scratch and allows users to modify the images to suit their needs. Modifiers include sex, skin, hair and eye color, age, head pose and facial expression. When you’re finished with the image, you can purchase it in high-resolution format for your personal or commercial use (just like stock photography).

The tool is designed for a broad range of users who want more control over images than regular photography can offer. For example, researchers wishing to study biases based on a particular trait can simply invent sample subjects from a common image. The next version may enable faces to be placed on full bodies to broaden the market even more.