Zoom and enhance!

Using computer systems to zoom and enhance is a tv trope.

But we’re getting better.

Researchers at Duke University have released a paper on PULSE, an AI algorithm that constructs a high resolution face from a low resolution image. And the results look pretty good:

6/23/2020 Update: The PULSE algorithm exhibits a notable bias towards Caucasian features:

It’s a startling image that illustrates the deep-rooted biases of AI research. Input a low-resolution picture of Barack Obama, the first black president of the United States, into an algorithm designed to generate depixelated faces, and the output is a white man.

What a machine learning tool that turns Obama white can (and can’t) tell us about AI bias