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Stable Diffusion is a big deal

simonwillison.net

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Re: Stable Diffusion is a big deal

#261

Post by SyzygistSix »

systemvoltage wrote: post #138
michaelchisari wrote: post #6

After using SD heavily for a week, I half agree with this. It is incredibly disruptive, and it's wild how much it accelerates the creative process. I'll give you that. But two things I've noticed: First, artists will still have a massive advantage over non-artists with this tool. A photographer who intimately knows the different lenses and cameras and industry terms will get to a representation of their idea much fas…

I always wondered if we massively overestimate human creativity. Maybe it is ingrained in our culture and our very being. I’ve never heard counter arguments that humans are not that creative. Creativity demonstrated by Alpha zero chess engine blows Magnus Carlsen’s mind (from his recent interview with Lex Fridman), I wonder if at some point in the future, we’ll finally throw in the towel and get out of the denial pha…

No, apparently we just massively underestimate how important studying the humanities is. This is illustration, not art. I'm flabbergasted how many people are so quick to confuse or conflate the two.

Re: Stable Diffusion is a big deal

#262

Post by thedorkknight »

systemvoltage wrote: post #138
michaelchisari wrote: post #6

After using SD heavily for a week, I half agree with this. It is incredibly disruptive, and it's wild how much it accelerates the creative process. I'll give you that. But two things I've noticed: First, artists will still have a massive advantage over non-artists with this tool. A photographer who intimately knows the different lenses and cameras and industry terms will get to a representation of their idea much fas…

I always wondered if we massively overestimate human creativity. Maybe it is ingrained in our culture and our very being. I’ve never heard counter arguments that humans are not that creative. Creativity demonstrated by Alpha zero chess engine blows Magnus Carlsen’s mind (from his recent interview with Lex Fridman), I wonder if at some point in the future, we’ll finally throw in the towel and get out of the denial pha…

Alpha zero was trained by playing against itself, with a clear win condition. You'd need to quantify what it means for one image to be "more creative" than another to get a similar result.

Re: Stable Diffusion is a big deal

#263

Post by SyzygistSix »

habosa wrote: post #121

These new models completely changed my mind about how much impact AI will have in my lifetime. They are the most impressive software achievements in decades and anyone who has a “meh” reaction will absolutely end up looking silly. I’m not optimistic that their impact will be positive though.

I think that the cause of that is unlikely to be Stable Diffusion but the lack of education that allows so many educated people in this thread to mistake images for art. In that way a lot of the damage has already been done.

Re: Stable Diffusion is a big deal

#264

Post by ryandv »

amval wrote: post #62
ryandv wrote: post #22

Quoted post unavailable.

Probably because: 1. You don't make any actual point that could lead to a constructive discussion. 2. What you are saying is not true: this model was developed in an university in Germany and sponsored by a private company. The only public founder I could find is this one: https://www.crunchbase.com/person/emad-mostaque Perhaps you should reevaluate your own biases as well.

No post body was provided.

Re: Stable Diffusion is a big deal

#266

Post by SyzygistSix »

choeger wrote: post #56

> No-one expected creative AIs to come for the artist jobs first, but here we are! Maybe that's because we never really thought about it. In hindsight, it's only logical. For an artistic rendering, correctness doesn't matter much nor does understanding the model. For flying a plane or driving a car or just transforming code from one language to another, it very much does.

It isn't coming for the artists' jobs. Commercial illustrators sure.

Francis Bacon has a quote that is apt about how he paints the things that cannot be described with words.

Re: Stable Diffusion is a big deal

#267

Post by sarchertech »

slyall wrote: post #254
rhdunn wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens if you give an image prompt like "mona lisa", "daffodils van gogh", or similar designed to describe an image the model was trained on. Will it generate that image? Or for written works, start with a sentance from a copyrighted work, or part of licensed code. Will it start reproducing that work word for word (like code pilot can do with the GPL license)? Getting these to generate copies of GPL'd, company…

What do you picture when you see words like "Elvis Presley" , "Game of Thrones" or "The Google logo"? Explain how you are not a copyright violating machine.

I absolutely would be if I took copyrighted images out of my head and distributed them.

Re: Stable Diffusion is a big deal

#268

Post by moffkalast »

planb wrote: post #175

> Stable Diffusion has been trained on millions of copyrighted images scraped from the web. My brain has been trained on even more copyrighted material. Every book I read, every tv show I watch, the toys I played with as a child. It's hard to imagine that I could come up with anything that is not inspired by copyrighted work.

> It's hard to imagine that I could come up with anything that is not inspired by copyrighted work.

That is legitimately a problem, people get sued for it all the time.

Re: Stable Diffusion is a big deal

#269

Post by fingerlocks »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #208
amelius wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but art school just turned into a one-semester course.

Nobody gets paid to be a telephone operator or a cobbler or a steeplejack anymore either. If new tools come along that automates and further commoditizes the production of art, I don't see the issue. Automatic driving for trucking, public transport, taxis would economically impact vastly more people, and everyone here seems to be cheering for that. There's nothing special about art. People will still do it as a hobby…

Cobblers still exist. I visit one regularly for shoe repair.

https://www.davepagecobbler.com/

Re: Stable Diffusion is a big deal

#270

Post by nluken »

andybak wrote: post #219
barrenko wrote: post #196

Still looks like crap, in the same way that a CGI sequence in a movie jumps out to someone who is a gamer. (In my very modest modest opinion).

When witnessing a huge leap forward in human technological achievement, doesn't it feel a little strange to respond with "looks like crap"? Even on your own terms, you're engaging in hyperbole. I've looked though thousands of these images and the harshest I can come up with is "assuming the result isn't obviously broken (i.e. some generated anatomy) then the results are sometimes a little bit uncanny or 'off'")

It seems like AI image generation is close, but still slightly "off" as you say. To me it remains to be seen whether that's actually a huge achievement, or whether there's more work to be done to achieve that last 10% than has been done so far. The poster you're replying to used gaming as an example, and you only have to look there to see how graphical improvements in the last 10 years have diminishing returns versus earlier improvements.

I could be wrong but this seems like an area where our progress will look like an S-curve. Getting that last 10% could be the real achievement.

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