The Singularity Approaches!

It's been a while since I posted here, but I have a new cache of news on the media synthesis front!

1. ESRGAN -- Deep Learning to improve old game images [In this case, increasing the fidelity of textures Max Payne, made in 2001, up to something more akin to a last gen game)
2. Modders are using AI to upscale pre-rendered PS1 backgrounds with phenomenal results
3. Machine learning is rescuing old game textures in Zelda and Final Fantasy | The company says it ran 4,400 textures from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess through a machine-learning algorithm to improve quality. And just like with Final Fantasy VII, the results are stunning.

 

More media synthesis and deepfakes in action:

This website automatically generates new human faces. None of them are real. They are generated through AI. Refresh the site for a new face.
https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/

 

OpenAI: We’ve trained a large-scale unsupervised language model which generates coherent paragraphs of text, achieves state-of-the-art performance on many language modeling benchmarks, and performs rudimentary reading comprehension, machine translation, question answering, and summarization

Good god! An algorithm wrote this!!

 

HOLY CRAP, OPENAI'S ALGORITHM CAN ACTUALLY WRITE FICTION.


SYSTEM PROMPT (HUMAN-WRITTEN)
Legolas and Gimli advanced on the orcs, raising their weapons with a harrowing war cry.

MODEL COMPLETION (MACHINE-WRITTEN, FIRST TRY)
The orcs’ response was a deafening onslaught of claws, claws, and claws; even Elrond was forced to retreat. “You are in good hands, dwarf,” said Gimli, who had been among the first to charge at the orcs; it took only two words before their opponents were reduced to a blood-soaked quagmire, and the dwarf took his first kill of the night. The battle lasted for hours until two of the largest Orcs attempted to overwhelm Aragorn. When they finally stopped, they lay defeated and lifeless for miles and miles.

“I take nothing,” said Aragorn. “But I give my word, at my peril and mine, that I will never forget this day of horror. None of us will forget. Ever!”

“I’ll never forget it!” cried Gimli, who had been in the thick of the battle but hadn’t taken part in it. One of the wounded orcs he had carried off, he was the only one of the survivors who remained uninjured. “We’ll keep the memory of that day of evil, and the war with it, alive as long as we live, my friends!”

“Then we’ll keep it alive as long as we live,” added Legolas. “And we won’t forget the first great battle of the night, even if we may have forgotten the final defeat.”

“I agree,” Gandalf said, “but we will all remember it as the last battle in Middle-earth, and the first great battle of the new day.”

Aragorn drew his sword, and the Battle of Fangorn was won. As they marched out through the thicket the morning mist cleared, and the day turned to dusk.

The Two Rings were returned to Rivendell. Frodo and Sam woke up alone in their room, and Frodo found a note on his pillow. He opened it and read:

May the Power of the Ring be with you always, and may its light never fade. I am not sure if it matters which of the two rings we accept this day but, as you asked me, I have chosen mine. I am sorry to leave you, Frodo, but know that we are very close to the end, and that you are with us forever. May this letter find you safely in Rivendell; and if it does not, then I will accept the ring in your stead. If by any chance you find or give this letter to the enemy, may they learn the strength of the ring and may the Two Rings never be broken!


Crappy fiction, but coherent fiction nonetheless!

 

ProGAN trained on r/EarthPorn images

 

Sketch-to-Image Synthesis | A couple examples of turning some rough sketches into decent facsimiles of photorealistic faces (with the target outputs as comparisons)