Cats and internet is a combination that has been generating meme and more for years now. The most photographed pets in the world have in fact been the undisputed protagonists for years of posts on social media, of sharing in messaging apps, of caricatures of all kinds, in short, they are one of the “bricks” of the internet. Yet, even they, the real cats , may not last forever.
Just a few days ago we saw the incredible AI of Epic that creates very credible human faces, but for some time there are also cat generators online, which just a year ago created such disgrace , and which are now so credible that they can easily be mistaken for real cats.
Looking closely at the cats created by thiscatdoesnotexist some patterns can be seen: the eyes are not as detailed as those of a real cat, there is always a blurred background and the hair at the border is not perfect, but many other details are credible, from mustache to ear hair, from expressions variegated to the many “imperfect somatic features” and realistic. Occasionally some cat less credible than the others happens, especially those with open mouths, but the result remains remarkable and the progress made decisive.
In short, sooner than later we could despoil like crazy photos of kittens that don't really exist, unaware that they are such. And if the deep fake theme on cats may not be as “hot” as the one on men, it is still a sign of the times that await us: those in which distinguish reality and fantasy it will get harder and harder .
None of these cats exist. All are GAN-generated images obtained from https://t.co/AEMYeQ4ZrO. Can we come up with a way to detect GAN-generated cat pics? #CaturdayShenaniGANs
(GAN = “generative adversarial network”, the AI technique used to create the images)
cc: @ZellaQuixote pic.twitter.com/gsaPJPGKEX
– Conspirador Norteño (@ conspirator0) April 10, 2021
