video description: “Facial detection systems are being massively used in our society. Those systems use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to detect human faces in a video stream. AI brings unprecedented benefits to the society, but also it’s becoming potentially more dangerous. In this media artwork, AI is used against AI to discover How Computers Imagine Humans, using a selected computer visual noise (one computer) and an AI face detector system (another computer). Both systems running against each other.” Research published at the ARTECH 2017, 8th International Conference on Digital Arts, Macau China: João Martinho Moura, Paulo Ferreira-Lopes (2017), Generative Face fromRandom Data, on “How Computers Imagine Humans”, ARTECH 2017 – 8th International Conference on Digital Arts, p85-91. ISBN: 978-1-4503-5273-4
Macau, China. Publication available at ACM
Artwork: How Computers Imagine Humans (João Martinho Moura, 2017)
Statement:
In current times where GANs (generative adversarial networks) are propagating and also saturating our screens, the subject of art made with AI it’s gaining attention and also reflections on how will we deal with this kind of medium in the future. So, inspired on the foundations of these GANs, I’m presenting a kind of very simple and almost manually made try, using a very well known algorithm used for face detection (a classical one) and unusual use of its technique, intended to do the opposite of what it is supposed to achieve: instead of trying to locate and capture faces, I generate facial images ‘imagined’ by a computer through the exploration of hypothetical possibilities, starting just from visual randomness (as generating noise it’s a basic procedure on computers). More than what if offers in terms of visualization of what is behind algorithms, this work, as it is presented, with 2 machines interacting with each other without a wired or wireless connection, demonstrates the ‘knowledge’ we humans try to implement into machines to detect ourselves. A kind of awareness about these technologies and their effects (negative or positive) on our society. The result is a kind of a ghost-human face, made by mathematics and probabilities, appearing very slowly as the algorithms work overtime. Mathematically calculated from noise, and, because of that … no soul, no history, no memory.