We know that people with chins as square as B.J. Blaskovich's exist. After all, Henry Rollins exists. But "Wolfenstein 3D" is not a game to play for realistic faces; B.J.'s pixelated head beneath the UI is just fine enough to convey how fit he is. This week, an A.I.-led "face depixlizer" image is circulating that turns that pixel art into a horrible human being.

Too realistic. But it also looks like a person who could not exist, or at least should not exist. His head is very square! His eyebrows seem to block out the sun. His hair somehow resembles the color of the most disgusting 70's hairy carpet. How could this B.J. not play a non-speaking role like "Gangster No. 3" in a mediocre mafia movie?

I saw this image three days ago, and I keep thinking about it. I suddenly get an unpleasant smile on my face. There is something about his expression, that slight smile, that makes him look like a frat boy with glassy eyes. I want to believe he is real and not an algorithmic creation. If this photo had not been tweeted by a project official, I would have thought it was Photoshopped.

The project, Face Depixelizer, inserts low-resolution images and uses a neural network called StyleGAN, created by Nvidia a few years ago, to intelligently reproduce them in more detail. Obviously, when using a pixelated fake face instead of a low-resolution photo of a real person, the effect becomes a bit outlandish. I tried running it myself, but it seems to overload the Depixelizer. I'm disappointed because I really wanted to see what the 3D face of Mario from Mario 64 would look like if it were a "real" person.

Aside from fun faces like B.J.'s, the technology has some not-so-nice effects. For example, try applying this technology to a low-resolution photo of Obama and see what happens:

It is inevitable that this technology will be used in a bad way; we have seen AI quickly inherit racist traits, and neural network image generators will be no different. One of the people involved in the depixelizer calls himself a 'popularizer' and seems unconcerned with ethical considerations." He tweeted, "Each new technology can be beneficial or detrimental, but if we censor neural networks like this one, there will be no human progress. I don't see how human progress depends on upscaling images.

I am at least happy to have brought this new version of B.J. into my life before this technology, like so many others, curls up like a cursed monkey's paw.