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Stable Diffusion is a big deal

simonwillison.net

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Re: Stable Diffusion is a big deal

#351

Post by shagie »

bsenftner wrote: post #271
SyzygistSix wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it didn't but people who took only one semester of art classes may remain under the delusion that art is about making pretty pictures. People who need illustration or graphics with no particular style can meet their needs with this tool but that is far from art. This replaces commercial illustration, not artists.

Exactly, this replaces general illustrative commercial art. This is great for illustrations at the head intro of fiction stories. However, fine artists that produce art where the object created is merely the totem for their actual art: intellectual conceptualization of an idea, often concerning the finality of life and the immature behaviors we playout within; that type of Fine Art is completely out of reach of moder…

I can see this replacing the clip and misappropriated art in slide presentations that no one is paying for currently with a $20/month service that lets you do "line art angry man in toga at computer" to put into your talk on Kuberentes.

It might replace the "nice pic, do you have it at {size} so I can use it as a desktop image" comments on various social media sites.

I don't see it replacing an actual photograph as a wall hanging (or a painting) because they are subtly wrong in some ways. The reflection in the lake doesn't match the landscape... that one cloud has its lighting at slightly different angle than the rest.

Re: Stable Diffusion is a big deal

#352

Post by Workaccount2 »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #339
Workaccount2 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would venture to guess that the author doesn't have a full understanding of what the AI is doing or how it works. There are a gazillion artist who take clear inspiration from other artists, and there is no copywrite violation in doing so. The AI viewing his work isn't any different.

> I would venture to guess that the author doesn't have a full understanding of what the AI is doing or how it works. Actually he does. > There are a gazillion artist who take clear inspiration from other artists Inspiration is not the same thing Stable Diffusion does. We can't even define inspiration in a proper manner, but for sure we can say that if someone wants to draw comics in the way Tezuka made them, they ha…

We can go back and forth all day. But legally your friend has no legs to stand on. People do "like copies" of works all the time, and it's been ok'ed by the courts just as much.

Unless your friend thinks the AI is copying snippets of his work into generated images, I'm not sure where they are getting these ideas from.

Re: Stable Diffusion is a big deal

#353

Post by postalrat »

_gabe_ wrote: post #307

Is it just me, or do the comments in this thread seem to be the exact opposite of the sentiment in the comments on similar Github Copilot threads? I just find it a bit ironic that programmers are irate about Github Copilot using their copyrighted material to train. However, if it's an ML model training off of copyrighted artists material, clearly its a transformative work. I just find the opposing sentiments for thes…

And wasn't it settled back then? Now I'm ok with it.

Re: Stable Diffusion is a big deal

#354

Post by kixiQu »

_gabe_ wrote: post #307

Is it just me, or do the comments in this thread seem to be the exact opposite of the sentiment in the comments on similar Github Copilot threads? I just find it a bit ironic that programmers are irate about Github Copilot using their copyrighted material to train. However, if it's an ML model training off of copyrighted artists material, clearly its a transformative work. I just find the opposing sentiments for thes…

Sometimes people think it ought to be obvious, bright-line-tests only, to determine what is truly transformative or novel. The divergence you're pondering, if taken real charitably, maybe signals that that is wrong and that it requires some domain expertise to be able to ascertain whether imitation is really problematic.

Re: Stable Diffusion is a big deal

#355

Post by kjkjadksj »

zulban wrote: post #280
quitit wrote: post #246

I've said this ad nauseam - but people who think this is going to kill an industry clearly have no idea of said industry. It's a fantastically great tool, and a very exciting space, but reducing the function of creatives to people who draw pretty pictures is staggeringly ignorant.

Live music didn't disappear but the industry took a huge permanent culling when any cheap venue could just play a track. The replacement doesn't have to be great to trash an industry. It just has to be good enough for most. This is.

How about the fact that you can go on github today and find a thousand ml based music generators probably, and yet people still like going to concerts and seeing an artist play an instrument.

Re: Stable Diffusion is a big deal

#356

Post by kixiQu »

lelag wrote: post #342
pclmulqdq wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you use my copyrighted code to train your brain and reproduce exact copies of functions I wrote, I have a problem with that. Same for art. Exact copying is the copyright problem. If you use my copyrighted (public) code to train your brain, and then produce new functions that do new things, there is no problem. Replace "brain" with "AI" and you get my position on this (and a lot of others' positions). It seems to b…

Indeed. A difference I see between the GPT-like language models and those image generation models is that it feels like the language models actually hold full copies of a lot of sample of the training dataset (hence their ability to recite existing content), whereas the image generation models clearly do not: Stable Diffusion is 4Gb something, yet it can draw anything. That's the amazing part: the training dataset co…

Haven't we seen a lot of examples of these things vomiting up Starry Night on demand? Isn't that a clear case of memorization?

Re: Stable Diffusion is a big deal

#357

Post by sinenomine »

_gabe_ wrote: post #307

Is it just me, or do the comments in this thread seem to be the exact opposite of the sentiment in the comments on similar Github Copilot threads? I just find it a bit ironic that programmers are irate about Github Copilot using their copyrighted material to train. However, if it's an ML model training off of copyrighted artists material, clearly its a transformative work. I just find the opposing sentiments for thes…

I don't think AI trained on my creative output (not just code, mind you) is a problem per se.

What is a problem, in my opinion, is the tendency of large corporations and small circles on top of these to monopolize access to these models, and if some of the functionality gets available to the public, it's going through a very paternalistic, corporate, puritan censorship pipeline.

If you train artificial intelligence on our hard-won data, the resulting artifact should be available to us. StableDiffusion executed very well here.

Problem is, there may be no stability.ai for general-purpose multimodal AIs that are coming this decade, and this technology is a dystopia fuel when it's owned by a select few.

AI should be democratized.

Re: Stable Diffusion is a big deal

#358

Post by odessacubbage »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #324
dsign wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, this would be an incredible tool. I can see how some of the outputs may help me improve a piece I'm working on, even if I would never use the model's output for my final product.

It looks like a decent way to produce concept sketches. Currently, working with creatives (including programmers) is a very iterative process for non-creatives. "I want this." "No, I meant this." "Can we try making that line longer?" "Eh, I'm not feeling it. Why don't we try brighter colors?" "Ugh. That looks obnoxious. Can we tone down the red?" etc. If the non-creative can use this system to reduce that iteration,…

honestly i feel the opposite. one of the worst situations to run into as a designer is a client who is simply too married to a bad design. i would much rather work with something you scribbled on the back of a napkin than than some highly rendered ai vomit that is just fundamentally shit.

Re: Stable Diffusion is a big deal

#359

Post by systemvoltage »

SyzygistSix wrote: post #261
systemvoltage wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For the record, my significant other is an artist and my entire life has been surrounded by creative people. I’m questioning human creativity, say, 50 years from now, and how much machine creativity we currently underestimate. Sure these artworks lack imagination and fidelity today. Appreciating art and humanities has nothing to do with projecting AI capabilities in the future, I’m flabbergasted how many people are so quick to confuse or conflate the two. Maybe we should require people to study logic/reasoning and how important it is.

Re: Stable Diffusion is a big deal

#360

Post by stableskeptic »

mullingitover wrote: post #72
BonoboIO wrote: post #33

I tried SD for a bit and the results are at best mediocre. Dalle2 is dimensions better at understanding prompts, but it’s still a beta. So there is hope.

Linux started out pretty mediocre compared to closed source Unix, and even today there are operating systems that are better, but being freely available made it a game changer. I don’t foresee Dalle2 being open any time soon.

I'm struggling with the connection you're making between Linux and Stable Diffusion.

Linus didn't invent the core concepts of Unix. He copied the (arguably) good parts from an (arguably) closed ecosystem. His big innovation was leveraging the internet to create a new kind of community not really seen before it. The Linux bazaar gave smart developers excluded from the Bell Labs / BSD cathedral a place to be productive in that style on their own terms and others used it to disrupt the OS business. A lot of shit gets into Linux that the community turns into useful things.

I look at the inputs/outputs of Stable Diffusion and am reminded of the fractal craze of the 80's which revealed the underlying simplicity of incredibly complex looking things. Lots of interesting art and technology came out of that but I don't think anything like the Linux community did.

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