Reface now lets users face-swap into pics and GIFs they upload – TechCrunch

Buzzy face-swapping video app Reface is expanding its reality-shifting potential beyond selfies by letting users upload more of their own content for its AI to bring to life. Users of its iOS and Android apps still can't upload their own user generated video but the latest feature -- which it calls Swap Animation -- lets them upload images of humanoid stuff (monuments, memes, fine art portraits, or -- indeed -- photos of other people) which they want animated, choosing from a selection of in-app song snippets and poems for the AI-incarnate version to appear to speak/sing etc. Reface's freemium app has, thus far, taken a tightly curated approach to the content users can animate, only letting you face swap a selfie into a pre-set selection of movie and music video snippets (plus memes, GIFs, red carpet celeb shots, salon hair-dos and more). But the new feature -- which similarly relies on GAN (generative adversarial network) algorithms to work its reality-bending effects -- expands the expressive potential of the app by letting users supply their own source material to face swap/animate. Some rival apps do already offer this kind of functionality -- so there's an element of Reface catching up to apps like Avatarify, Wombo and Deep Nostalgia. But it's also going further as users can also swap their own face into their chosen source content.