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Key Stable Diffusion Researchers Leave Stability AI as Company Flounders

forbes.com

41–50 of 140 posts

Re: Key Stable Diffusion Researchers Leave Stability AI as Company Flounders

#41
post #32
post #2

Stability always seemed like a dark horse thanks to the reputation of their founder and their open source business model. I do get some schadenfreude from seeing them like this considering the damage many feel they've done to the art community. E: -4 in 10 minutes. Stay classy hackernews. I hope this company and OpenAI choke on the algorithmic disgorgement when the law catches up.

The "art community" did most of the damage to itself.

To expand upon this, the majority of the complaints I see are coming from the online community where the largest part of the material seems to be based of IP/copyright violation by the artists. I've been part of multiple communities who have decided to ban AI art because of a moral clause against using other's peoples works without their permission, but yet which don't like having it pointed out that the IP holders have withheld their permission of their characters being used for unlicensed artwork.

While some of this are people practicing their artwork and I don't see any reason we should care what artwork someone practices on, this is also the general trend for artwork being sold. Go to any convention where artists sell work and look at how much artwork is sold of characters the artists do not have license to. While I think one can take a philosophical stance against the current IP laws that outlaw this, such a stance would make it quite hard to oppose the use of content in training an AI.

In short, if those making the AI stole IP to train the AI, it was stolen from a community that was fine with IP theft that benefitted them. And if the claim is that it wasn't IP theft because the law was generally tolerating it (as long as no one became so much a target they received a C&D), then unless there are some lawsuits won against the AI it would be equally allowed.

(And of course individuals will have their own philosophical stances which might be much more consistent, I'm speaking of the generalized view I have developed from overall interactions with parts of the community and as such it is not meant to be strongly prescriptive to any specific member of the community).

Re: Key Stable Diffusion Researchers Leave Stability AI as Company Flounders

#42

SD3.0 looks really good and will probably displace a lot of closed image generation models once it's out. I don't understand why Stability gets so little support from the community. They released the first usable open-source models and their models are the foundation of the most interesting AI-bashing workflows out there - VC funded or otherwise.

[dead]

Re: Key Stable Diffusion Researchers Leave Stability AI as Company Flounders

#43
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheers to you, good citizen. I wish more people started with such links rather than waiting for someone else to make it easy to have a discussion.

That's a violation of HN guidelines.

Posting paywalled links should be, as well. It's borderline marketing. If I pay for the source, I don't need to find it on HN.

Re: Key Stable Diffusion Researchers Leave Stability AI as Company Flounders

#44

SD3.0 looks really good and will probably displace a lot of closed image generation models once it's out. I don't understand why Stability gets so little support from the community. They released the first usable open-source models and their models are the foundation of the most interesting AI-bashing workflows out there - VC funded or otherwise.

Stability AI had massive support when Stable Diffusion 1.x and SDXL each hit the scene. But the Gen AI industry has evolved so rapidly that forks and iterations on the models outpaced them, especially commercially.

That's a feature of open-source development, not a bug. But it's a reason (along with the general financial issues which are the company's fault alone) why Stability is switching to a "need a membership to use commercially" business model, and IMO it won't work.

Re: Key Stable Diffusion Researchers Leave Stability AI as Company Flounders

#45
post #40

SD3.0 looks really good and will probably displace a lot of closed image generation models once it's out. I don't understand why Stability gets so little support from the community. They released the first usable open-source models and their models are the foundation of the most interesting AI-bashing workflows out there - VC funded or otherwise.

Yeah. It is weird. On one hand, v3 looks really good, the arch is sound, and the work is solid. On the other hand, selling Clipdrop is not a good sign (a growing startup divest is uncommon). Emad likes to talk about how they were able to retain researchers and now this, so it is hard to know what's going on.

The CEO being a fraud could be a possible reason. Just saying.

Re: Key Stable Diffusion Researchers Leave Stability AI as Company Flounders

#46
post #45
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. It is weird. On one hand, v3 looks really good, the arch is sound, and the work is solid. On the other hand, selling Clipdrop is not a good sign (a growing startup divest is uncommon). Emad likes to talk about how they were able to retain researchers and now this, so it is hard to know what's going on.

The CEO being a fraud could be a possible reason. Just saying.

You shouldn't judge people by what Forbes says, but what people do. So far, Emad delivers on what he promises (with some delays here and there), and Stability.ai is the only one that publish image / video generation models at production quality.

Re: Key Stable Diffusion Researchers Leave Stability AI as Company Flounders

#47
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're thinking of Midjourney. Stable Diffusion is awesome, you can run it locally on consumer GPUs.

Parent comment is classic HN: strongly held opinions with 100% confidence, 75% of the information.

Appropriately for the topic, also classic AI.

Re: Key Stable Diffusion Researchers Leave Stability AI as Company Flounders

#48
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheers to you, good citizen. I wish more people started with such links rather than waiting for someone else to make it easy to have a discussion.

That's a violation of HN guidelines.

Sorry, what is? It isn’t to post or ask for archival links. It’s only a contravention if someone complains about paywalls.

Re: Key Stable Diffusion Researchers Leave Stability AI as Company Flounders

#49
post #45
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. It is weird. On one hand, v3 looks really good, the arch is sound, and the work is solid. On the other hand, selling Clipdrop is not a good sign (a growing startup divest is uncommon). Emad likes to talk about how they were able to retain researchers and now this, so it is hard to know what's going on.

The CEO being a fraud could be a possible reason. Just saying.

Certainly a shady player. Doesn't seem to be in good hands.
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