Categories: Digital LifeNews

This site can turn pixelised faces into realistic photos, but it has a white bias

New AI-powered web-based app ‘face depixeliser’ can turn pixelated images of faces into high resolution pictures, but it doesn’t necessarily reveal the actual person. The app can generate an alternative image and turns the pixelated photo into a new hi-res photo.

People on Twitter have already tried the site with their own faces. They’ve also tried taking pixelated old 8 bit faces from games and turning it into what they might look like in hi-res. Turning an pixelated picture of Mario into a higher-res photo was a mistake.

The white bias

However, when people of colour tried putting their own photos into the site, the results always turned them… white. For example, when a low-resolution picture of Barack Obama was uploaded into the face depixeliser, and the output is a white man. A picture of Lucy Liu would also turn her white.

“It does appear that PULSE is producing white faces much more frequently than faces of people of colour. This bias is likely inherited from the dataset StyleGAN was trained on… though there could be other factors that we are unaware of,” said creators of PULSE, which is the algorithm that is generating these images uses a technique known as upscaling to process visual data.

The algorithm doing this work is StyleGAN, which was created by researchers from NVIDIA. They are also responsible for making those eerily realistic human faces that you can see on websites like ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com. The faces generated are often used to generate fake social media profiles.

The white bias is common in machine learning, and is one of the reasons facial recognition algorithms perform worse on non-white and female faces. Not coincidentally, it’s white men who dominate AI research.

I wanted to try the site myself, but sadly the face depixeliser “has a daily cap on downloads”. They are currently using Google Drive to “store model weights”. If you are interested in seeing what you’d look like as a white person, I suggest you come back another day to try it.

Follow the directions given on the site. However, be prepared to be disappointed as you may receive an error message saying “Google Drive Quota Exceeded” or “No such file or directory: ‘/content/pulse/runs/face.png'”. 

[ SOURCE, 2, IMAGE SOURCE ]

Recent Posts

Nissan Kicks e-Power now open for booking in Malaysia, priced below RM130,000

Edaran Tan Chong Motor (ETCM) has announced that the Nissan Kicks e-Power is now open…

3 hours ago

TikTok, Content Forum and UiTM empowers students with Digital Literacy to promote a safer digital space

TikTok in partnership with Communications and Multimedia Content Forum of Malaysia (CMCF) have recently organised…

6 hours ago

Tesla owners in Malaysia can finally use the Autopark feature

Tesla owners in Malaysia have reported that their vehicles can now perform the Autopark feature.…

6 hours ago

Asus ROG Phone 9 series launching in Malaysia on 10th December 2024

After unveiling its latest smartphones, the Asus ROG Phone 9 series, to the world, Asus…

6 hours ago

WhatsApp Voice Message Transcripts converts voice into text

WhatsApp has introduced a new Voice Message Transcripts feature which allows users to easily convert…

13 hours ago

Every Transaction Could Make You a Monthly Millionaire – Here’s How with Maybank’s MAE

This post is brought to you by Maybank. Unlock more than just transactions with MAE’s…

24 hours ago

This website uses cookies.