Bastard Gan Punk's Background Removal Event ✂

Almost a year ago, Berk created an immersive NFT collection with each image (or BGAN as some call them) generated via a GAN network. This was one of the very first instances of an AI generated NFT. Most of the BGANs have a solid background, but about 1/5th have a patterned background. An even smaller subset of are actually morphing gifs. There has recently been a growing trend to integrate PFP NFT’s [Profile Picture NFT’s] into the metaverse. This integration allows metaverse to participants walk around utilizing their NFT’s as pseudonymous identities. To import an NFT into the metaverse, some platforms require that the API’s for a given collection offer an endpoint that serves the NFT image with the background removed or transparent. Now in theory, this would be as easy as asking Berk for the set of original background-less images that the GAN initially produced. The problem was that most of the bgans were trained with colored backgrounds, so the outputs already had colors merged with the figures, erasing the possibility of separating them easily! Only a set of ~4000 BGANS existed that had no background, but that set wasn't 100% included in the final published BGAN collection. The community considered manually removing the backgrounds, but at 11305 images, not counting each frame of the Hypes, it was a monumental proposal. There had to be a better way, if only a machine could somehow learn… how to remove a background. This is where Witrebel came in. He coded a machine-learning AI that when matched with a human participant could remove these backgrounds! In commemoration of his success and to reward participation we have a POAP!