There’s something haunting—and fascinating—about the way AI sees us.

When I create dystopian or abstract portraits using artificial intelligence, I often feel like I’m watching a machine try to dream. The results are not “wrong” or distorted versions of reality. They are surreal reflections of something deeper—something unconscious, unspoken, or even uncomfortable.

But what exactly does AI see when it tries to replicate the human face?

Faces Without Filters

Humans are wired to recognize faces—we seek them in clouds, trees, even electrical outlets. We read micro-expressions, age, emotion, and intent in a glance. But AI doesn’t see like we do. It doesn’t feel. It doesn’t assume.

Instead, it processes. It composites. It hallucinates structure from millions of data points, often blending features that shouldn’t coexist. That’s why AI-generated faces sometimes feel uncanny: too symmetrical, oddly shaped, or disjointedly expressive.

They look almost human—and there seems to be something lurking behind the eyes. And in that something, I see possibility.

Distortion as a Language

I don’t ask AI to make perfect portraits. I don’t want clean replications. I want it to get it wrong—beautifully, eerily, and sometimes brutally.

I feed it photographs or digital work that I’ve made myself. These original images are grounded in personal vision. From there, I let the machine deconstruct and reimagine them, often emphasizing cracks, glitched layers, or dreamlike abstraction.

The faces that emerge are not really portraits. They’re masks. Mirrors. Memory fragments.
Sometimes they resemble people I’ve met. Other times, they feel deeply familiar in a way I can’t explain.

That’s the magic of letting the machine dream.

What AI Reveals About Us

These distorted portraits often reveal more than literal likeness ever could. They capture discomfort, fragmentation, and emotional ambiguity. They reflect our anxieties about identity, surveillance, mutation, and loss of control.

What we see in them says more about us than the AI.

Are we disturbed by what we see? Or by how much of ourselves we recognize in the artwork?

Is it unsettling because it feels inhuman—or because it’s too human?

Collaborating with the Uncanny

Working with AI isn’t about giving up authorship. It’s a collaboration—one where I set the stage with intention, and the machine surprises me with suggestions.

I guide it toward what I want to evoke: dread, longing, nostalgia, alienation. But I always leave room for error. For chaos. For that strange moment where a face starts to form, but is it ever finished?

Because that’s where the meaning lives—in the becoming.

Final Thoughts

When machines dream, they don’t dream like we do. But in their strange, algorithmic visions of the human face, I see something valuable. Something worth exploring—not just visually, but emotionally and philosophically.

These aren't just portraits. They’re questions.

And I’m still learning how to answer them.