Generative adversarial networks (GANs)

What it is

Two networks competing, one generating images and the other detecting fakes, until photorealistic images are produced. They inaugurated generative AI and deepfakes.

What it led to

• Deepfakes and the crisis of trust in images
• The generation of synthetic faces and AI art
• Diffusion models as successors

Built on

• Game theory and minimax theorem1928-1944
• Backpropagation for training neural networks1986
• AlexNet and the deep learning revolution2012

Made possible

• Diffusion models and generative imagery2020-2022
• deepfakes
• StyleGAN

Links