These people never existed. They were made by an AI.

Back in June, an image generator that could turn even the crudest doodle of a face into a more realistic looking image made the rounds online. That system used a fairly new type of algorithm called a generative adversarial network (GAN) for its AI-created faces, and now, chipmaker NVIDIA has developed a system that employs a GAN to create far most realistic-looking images of people. Artificial neural networks are systems developed to mimic the activity of neurons in the human brain. In a GAN, two neural networks are essentially pitted against one another. One of the networks functions as a generative algorithm, while the other challenges the results of the first, playing an adversarial role. As part of their expanded applications for artificial intelligence, NVIDIA created a GAN that used CelebA-HQ's database of photos of famous people to generate images of people who don't actually exist.