The Nvidia GANs also shine when generating bedrooms. Previous research looked like something painted by Salvador Dali—beds melted into the floor while doorways looked twisted and warped. The Nvidia bedrooms look like something out of a catalogue.

Left and center, previous AI research. Right, images from a new Nvidia paper.
Left and center, previous AI research. Right, images from a new Nvidia paper.
Image: Nvidia

The images aren’t perfect. Some test images show women with only one earring, or a horse with a head on both sides of its body. When the system tries to generate TV monitors, it also generates cell phones and laptops. The technique also takes time—Nvidia’s paper says the networks took 20 days to train on one of its high-end GPU supercomputers.

The era of easily-faked photos is quickly emerging—much as it did when Photoshop became widely prevalent—so it’s a good time to remember we shouldn’t trust everything we see.

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