This Person Does Not Exist Sparking Controversy

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When I stumbled onto this new site, This Person Does Not Exist a few weeks ago, I was amazed and disturbed all at once. The site uses a stellar AI technology to draw randomized images of people that, at times, can look convincingly realistic. Some of the renditions created are much less realistic and instead inject an added level of creepiness. I began to notice these fictitious people appearing with bizarre deformities that feel straight out of a horror movie.  

I've generated quite a few that have stuck in my head for some time and even saved and shared some of the more odd images. I guarantee once you go to this site you won't leave without generating at least ten people. You'll find yourself entranced waiting to see what the next strange being to grace your screen will look like. Will they have a black hole embedded into their face? Melting ear? Creepy sharp teeth?

You should probably find out what strangeness you're destined to see while you still can. As with anything cool, people are going to find a way to tell you it's dangerous. Look no further than Venture Beat's article calling for the sites banning in addition to any similar sites. Did you guys snitch on the person who spiked the punch bowl at prom too?

This is the definition of buzz kill, a sweet ass technology has been bestowed upon us by the computer gods for us to tool around with and, not even a month in, they're begging us to abort. The premise is that scammers will use these images to defraud us through a variety of schemes ranging from "Pet Scams, Romance Scams, and Fake News."

The argument being, if we can shut these sites down, we can decrease these abuses. The "Pet Scams" concept is particularly amusing, the article cited described how people were scammed out of money because someone had a picture of a previously sold pet. The scammers were apparently posing as salespersons for a reputable dog seller. 

For one scam the article indicates that the scammers are using photos of dogs that were sold previously to entice new buyers to send funds via Western Union amongst other untraceable payment forms. Again, that is photos of REAL dogs the article links to. I'm not sure what that would have to do with these sites unless someone is working on a fake dog generator (which sounds equally amazing). Is there currently even a fake dog generating site? If there is, he doesn't tell us in the article. To claim that ties in somehow is more than a stretch. Secondly, it's not difficult to get pictures of dogs online or in real life. Any idiot could just go to Petco and ask to see a fucking puppy dude. 

Clearly I'm getting fired up! He also seems to act as if cat fishing was impossible prior to these sites or as if fake news will be increased with these pictures now at the scammers disposal. Let's just be real for a minute. If someone is stupid enough to send their "online girlfriend" in India money, use a suspicious, untraceable method of payment to buy a dog or believes every headline they read without doing their own due diligence, it's not some entertaining websites fault, it's their own. 

Not to say there aren't some people that can easily be taken advantage of, but understand this a select few not a majority. If an artist draws thousands of ultra realistic portraits that we can't tell are fake should we ban those too? This is just a new kind of non-human art form, let's hold off on pulling the plug and at least see some actual data that it has a negative impact before jumping to conclusions. Also, let us not be total dickheads. 

EVIL AUTHOR

A.K. Burnsregard