Oh look, a bunch of accounts named George with GAN-generated profile pics are tweeting identical tweets. #HolidayShenaniGANs
(GAN = "generative adversarial network", the technique used by thispersondoesnotexist.com to generate fake face pics)
cc: @ZellaQuixote
The spammy Georges are part of a larger network of 2500 newly-created accounts promoting cryptocurrency launchpad site @CeloLaunch. Between them, these 2250 accounts have just 25 unique first names and 50 unique last names. All have zero likes, zero followers, and 1 or 2 tweets.
Most of these accounts have tweeted exactly twice: a duplicated tweet promoting @CeloLaunch, and a retweet of a December 12th @CeloLaunch tweet (a few missed either the duplicate tweet or the retweet). All tweets were sent (allegedly) via the Twitter web app.
All 2250 accounts in the network follow @CeloLaunch and at most one other account. Those most frequently followed (other than @CeloLaunch) are @ZelenskyyUa, @Ukraine, @elonmusk, and @ekrem_imamoglu.
All 2250 accounts use GAN-generated profile pics. Unmodified GAN-generated face pics have the telltale feature that the major facial features are in the same position on every image*, which becomes evident when the images are blended together.
(*for now; StyleGAN 3 changes this)
Despite the fact that one can produce as many unique GAN-generated face images as one's heart desires, the operator of this network in many cases reused the same image on multiple accounts. #YouHadOneJob
As tends to be the case with large networks of accounts with GAN-generated pics, some of the accounts ended up with glitchy images ranging from hilarious to utterly creepy.
Some other examples of common signs that a "face" may be GAN-generated in this thread:
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