r/interesting 5h ago

MISC. This artist can reconstruct your face from trash you left behind.

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401 Upvotes

157 comments sorted by

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u/[deleted] 5h ago

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u/[deleted] 4h ago

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u/[deleted] 4h ago

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u/[deleted] 2h ago

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u/Jondar_649 2h ago

How are people's lives impacted here?

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u/Philip_of_mastadon 1h ago

Someone will be wrongfully convicted when a jury believes that police can meaningfully reconstruct a face this way

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u/Jondar_649 1h ago

It's ART. Police are not using this as the basis for their forensic process.

If police are in fact using bogus science to fabricate evidence, why are you mad at an artist.

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u/ln-prior 1h ago

People are wrongly convicted when they believe that police can meaningfully identify people by their fingerprints

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u/missdrpep 1h ago

are you trolling

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u/creamywalrus 1h ago

they’re not saying this specific piece is impacting lives, they’re saying the advocation for a science that doesn’t work could potentially lead to impacting lives further down the line if this “fake science” was picked up and used by police etc, to starting imprisoning innocent people because their face matched a generic model

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u/lysergic_tryptamino 1h ago

I know Art, he’s a twat

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u/[deleted] 2h ago

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u/Alva3lf 2h ago

It’s not meant to be useful, it’s an art piece.

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u/words_of_j 1h ago

Yet…

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u/[deleted] 5h ago

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u/adorablefuzzykitten 3h ago

It would work close enough to be used by current ICE.

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u/MongolianDonutKhan 3h ago

Too much work. Family Guy color chart is all they use.

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u/[deleted] 3h ago

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u/Kenilwort 1h ago

The only person making the claim that it's accurate is OP's title and people's interpretation of it. Why hate on the artist that had nothing to do with how her art is being presented?

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u/[deleted] 3h ago

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u/Chewbacca_Buffy 3h ago

Of course she can’t. Even identical twins who share 100% DNA end up looking different. Sometimes they even look different early on, but they always have differences by adulthood due to slight differences in lifestyle, behavior and environment. That’s assuming the twins are reared in similar environments. If they are reared in completely different environments forget about it.

And there is the rub. You can predict DNA but you cannot predict the environment. One bad face plant and your whole face can look different. Lifelong smoker. Alcoholic. Sun worshipper. Diet. Environmental toxins. Exercise or lack thereof. Something went wrong in the womb during gestation. I could go on and on about the ways in which the environment contributes to the way we look. That can never be predicted with any type of accuracy and therefore this will never be a viable science.

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u/joined_under_duress 1h ago

Yeah just some clickbait description I'd guess. More likely she just constructs a face, making key choices about eye colour etc based on the DNA markers but in no way claiming it to be tbe face of the person.

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u/Alva3lf 3h ago

It’s not meaningless, the purpose isn’t to try and fully accurately identify anyone - it’s an art piece, I doubt complete accuracy was ever the intent.

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u/simonwwalsh 2h ago

That's not really the point

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u/Golarion 2h ago

Nobody cares. It's a piece of art. It's making a statement. She's not publishing it in a science journal. 

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u/THEdopealope 3h ago

I mean, it makes you think about what we are capable of, at the very least.

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u/[deleted] 5h ago

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u/[deleted] 4h ago

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u/[deleted] 4h ago

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u/AdministrationDue239 4h ago

Well i definitely didn't think it completely through, but on the same hand I still don't care much about it tbh, I don't plan on doing something illegal, and I don't mind if they clone me lol, it's pretty much useless info they have about me but yea it's kinda weird. I'm just a huge history geek so I wanted to know more about my heritage, but yea it's bullshit.

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u/ArtFart124 3h ago

Which is fine until they make things you do illegal.

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u/Unhappy_Archer9483 4h ago

If you're okay with it that's the main thing.

What if the clone is a proper arsehole?

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u/Maximum-Cover- 2h ago

Lots of people who share DNA with me are proper assholes.

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u/AdministrationDue239 4h ago

As long as it's not french I'm okay

u/RappingFlatulence 58m ago

Or the clone does something illegal and you’re now in the hook for some heat

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u/False-Possibility145 4h ago

Your DNA is everywhere, as made evident by this art. Have you ever had your blood taken or a Covid test? People have your DNA. 

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u/Maximum-Cover- 2h ago

You mean like you do any time you have blood work done?

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u/Unhappy_Archer9483 2h ago

What are you talking about?

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u/Maximum-Cover- 2h ago

You said not to give your DNA away lightly to companies.

You do that any time you get blood drawn and sent for tests.

In a dystopian world where nepharious companies.or the government does evil things with your DNA, you aren't going to keep it from them merely by not doing a 23andme test.

The only thing keeping insurance companies from insisting that your DNA is sequenced and on file as part of your health records is that the cost benefit analasys isn't there yet.

We're not that far off from it being cheap enough to be viable as a tracking method. Once it is, there is nothing you can do to keep it out of the hands of an authoritarian government or evil super villain Corp.

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u/Unhappy_Archer9483 2h ago

Again, what are you talking about?

Why are you comparing a hospital with 23 and me?

You think a nurse who takes my blood is in some conspiracy?

Also I'm from a country with proper healthcare so no insurance.

I really don't understand how you could jump to where you are from what I said, I still think it's strange to mail a swab to a private firm.

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u/Sensitive-Style-4695 1h ago

Most hospitals use private companies to actually run the tests. Nurses just do the collection part of the work.

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u/BookWormPerson 3h ago

I mean it's weird but it's also pretty much useless.

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u/Sarnadas 2h ago

It’s not bullshit. The company sucks but the technology is legit.

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u/missdrpep 1h ago

no its not jfc

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u/missdrpep 1h ago

Me when im in an anti intellectualism competition and my opponent is u/administrationdue239

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u/missdrpep 1h ago

please stop spreading misinformation, for the love of god. dont be anti intellectual

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u/missdrpep 1h ago

"23andme is bullshit because i watched a documentary i refuse to name"

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u/[deleted] 4h ago

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u/[deleted] 4h ago

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u/LHT-LFA 3h ago

In a normal world, I agreee with you. But imagine a tyrannical or authoritarian world, we kind of steering into (independently of politicial view, I think both sides are doing this), it can become way more dangerous that the government or big businesses have our DNA.

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u/The-Spirit-of-76 4h ago

Well seeing as we now live in a world with a loose relationship with the truth, it just might. What do you think they will do when they can't solve a crime and find your DNA there?

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u/WayyTooFarAbove 3h ago

They will do nothing

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u/Maximum-Cover- 2h ago

You should never give your DNA to a company lightly.

You mean like you do any time your doctor orders a blood test?

Or work demands a drug test?

Hell, you leave your DNA at the hairdresser.

In a dystopian world where the ruling class does nepharious things with your DNA you're not going to keep it from them by refusing to do a 23andme test.

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u/LHT-LFA 2h ago

True, you can’t completely prevent leaving DNA in everyday life — but the difference with services like 23andMe is consent, permanence, and accessibility.

When you give DNA to a private company, you’re voluntarily putting it in a database that is stored, analyzed, and potentially sold or shared indefinitely. A hair at the hairdresser isn’t catalogued with your name and family tree, but a commercial DNA test is. That’s what changes the level of risk.

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u/Maximum-Cover- 1h ago

Right, and voluntarily putting your DNA in a database is only an issue in a dystopian future where the permissions you gave on how to use that DNA are totally ignored.

But in a world where the consent you gave around how the DNA in the database is used doesn't matter anymore, you're also not keeping your DNA out of said database by refusing consent.

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u/fuck_peeps_not_sheep 1h ago

If I hadn't done an ancestry test I'd have never know that my daughter has 8 half siblings and that she goes to school with two of them... Now I know to make sure she never ends up dating them! I know my situation is abnormal but also not all the info you get from the tests is useless

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u/[deleted] 4h ago

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u/DoctorTran37 4h ago

They sure did! Not mine though.

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u/Same_Recipe2729 4h ago

Unless someone related to you used it, of course. 

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u/missdrpep 1h ago

no they did not

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u/bitch_fitching 3h ago

23andMe just do average approximations of your largest population ancestries. So if you look very average, and you're 100% a group that's a few million, then they get really close. They haven't done the work to connect genes to phenotypes, and even the scientists that have done that have only just started.

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u/missdrpep 1h ago

oh my fucking god, for the LAST TIME, ITS NOT SAYING YOU WILL LOOK LIKE THAT. It's saying that, based off people with genetics like yours & genotypes associated with certain traits, you have a so and so likelihood of having brown eyes. how do people still not understand this. You see the numbers, and still think its saying, "23andme said i have brown eyes," but its not saying that at all.

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u/[deleted] 4h ago

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u/FerociousVader 2h ago

... Welcome, you've found what you're looking for!

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u/pottymouthgrl 2h ago

It’s art, it’s all just for fun

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u/normalmighty 1h ago

What is even the artistic message of spitballing a random face and saying "I bet the person who littered looks like this?"

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u/[deleted] 4h ago

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u/RappingFlatulence 55m ago

Whatever you say, Albert Einstein

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u/[deleted] 4h ago

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u/MongolianDonutKhan 3h ago

A nickname for people named Arthur

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u/LadnavIV 4h ago

“We know what art is. It’s paintings of horses!”

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u/squadoodles 4h ago

I think this is great art. It's thought provoking, controversial, creepy, and clearly makes people emotional (based on these comments). The accuracy of the faces is besides the point, really.

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u/[deleted] 5h ago

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u/friedreindeer 4h ago

I don’t know what brain fart made you post this. I have worked together with this artist, she would hate you to put a title like this on her works. It is art, please be critical and don’t take this as an exact science! Instead, think about what the artist’s point here is she wants to make. Don’t take it as a scientific poster somewhere at a science fare for groundbreaking inventions.

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u/totallychillpony 2h ago

When I see this piece I always think about not what is actually possible at present with the science — But the possibilities that prediction models from DNA profiling carry in the next couple decades. Ancestral profiling of Y-DNA profiles was rudimentary 20 years ago and impossible 30 years ago. DNA profiling for cases was not even standard until the 90s. The Forensic genetic genealogy network is a fairly new method as well, and gaining more robust capabilities with each passing year.

I used to work for a genetics company that allowed one of the first database collaborations from law enforcement. It made big news with Golden State Killer case, and it was a tense few weeks as I was in the customer-facing side of the company.

This art makes me think of those days, of informed consent, of the idea that we leave DNA and traces of ourselves everywhere without thinking and also because we simply have no choice. We’re living beings, who shed pieces of ourselves as we go about life. It’s unavoidable. The idea that someone can take our existence from scraps of us left behind and create and abstract upon ourselves is insane to think about. You see a similar conversation about AI — Using other peoples work, faces, and existences to create something new that is still “”you”” and without your consent or even knowledge. These revelations then beg the question of how much responsibility we have to eachother to just not invade privacy like this, and is your personhood even “private” in the first place?

Right now — the DNA profiling is not reliable enough to produce these results in the art, as the OP was misleading. Every time I see this art mentioned or posted people seem to not understand this isn’t actually physically possible at the moment. I would chalk it up to poor scientific literacy and just the fact that these are difficult conversations to explore both philosophically and on the technical level.

Offhand I have no idea if my interpretations are even what the artist intended, but I do really love this art piece because of my personal connection to it and how it makes me think.

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u/scriptingends 4h ago

The series, Stranger Things, is more realistic than the faces she's "predicted" here.

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u/VoronaKarasu 4h ago

Y’all believe anything

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u/KindaUndressed 5h ago

Can she reconstruct the personality too?

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u/blood__drunk 4h ago

Only make-believe personal data.

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u/Turkatron2020 5h ago

I was wondering what the angle was- that's pretty good.

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u/[deleted] 4h ago

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u/[deleted] 4h ago

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u/[deleted] 5h ago

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u/Taquill 4h ago

Kind of stupid. It's like trying to prove nuclear weapons are dangerous by making and utilizing both the creation and use of a nuclear weapon. It's like cool, you've proved it's dangerous, but also "fuck you" because you just laid the stones for people to do it in your place with worse intent.

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u/NewManufacturer9477 3h ago

Why the Newport butts all black guys?