Dave Gershgorn, Quartz:

Three years ago, after an argument at a bar with some fellow artificial intelligence researchers, Ph.D student Ian Goodfellow cobbled together a new way for AI to think about creating images. The idea was simple: one algorithm tries to generate a realistic image of an object or a scene, while another algorithm tries to decide whether that image is real or fake.

The two algorithms are adversaries—each trying to beat the other in the interest of creating the final best image—and this technique, now called “generative adversarial networks” (GANs) has quickly become a cornerstone of AI research.

The term GAN is worth remembering. It is one of the new shinys in AI research.

But more importantly, jump to the article and scan through the images, watch the embedded video. The generated images are remarkably good. I cannot tell the difference between generated images and real ones.

This is fascinating and scary, all rolled into one.