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“This Person Does Not Exist” is a computational project that was created by Phillip Wang using StyleGAN, a machine learning framework made available by the technology company Nvidia. Phillip is a former Uber software engineer who created the program to show the impressive capabilities of GANs (generative adversarial networks.) It was originally shared to a small Facebook group but went on to get over 4 million hits. His inspiration for the project likely came from the rise of intelligent video manipulation and “deepfakes” on the internet.

Upon loading the webpage, the screen is filled with a high definition headshot of a random person. Reloading the page brings up another person, and so on. While the images look believable, they are all completely fabricated by an artificial intelligence; thus the title “This Person Does not Exist.”

What makes this project so interesting to me is the questions it brings up. If a computer program can so easily trick us into thinking a face is real, what else could we be made to believe? In a world where we already question almost every piece of information fed to us from entertainment media and the news, it seems as though tools for digital deception are only becoming more advanced. By highlighting the exponentially expanding capabilities of artificial intelligence, this work leaves the user feeling both deep discomfort and utter awe.