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Imagen Video: high definition video generation with diffusion models

imagen.research.google

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Re: Imagen Video: high definition video generation with diffusion models

#401

The concern trolling and gatekeeping about social justice issues coming from the so-called "ethicists" in the AI peanut gallery has been utterly ridiculous. Google claims they don't want to release Imagen because it lacks what can only be called "latent space affirmative action". Stability or someone like it will valiantly release this technology, again and there will be absolutely no harm to anyone. Stop being so to…

I don’t know about this take. Remember all of the shitstorms that the NYT et. al. kicked up over biased/racist/sexist AI? Remember Tay?

I think if you are Google, you are terrified of the bad PR from someone generating something questionable. And that bad article is inevitable if you open up these models. (See, pornpen.ai being released approximately five minutes after StableDiffusion. Imagine the press if that was built from the mode Google published.)

An open source community is a diffuse target, so the NYT won’t go after them as quickly, and let's be honest, their axe to grind is with big tech, not a bunch of AI hackers.

Re: Imagen Video: high definition video generation with diffusion models

#402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh, how silly of me. Here I was thinking that Google kept their models private because they were hoping to monetize them. But now that you say it, it's obvious that this is just Google being morally responsible. Thanks Google! I'm sorry to be sarcastic. I generally try not to be, but I just can't fathom the level of naivete required to think that mega-corps act out of their moral responsibility rather than their pro…

I'm sorry you feel so cynical about this. It's absolutely true that Google is profit-seeking, that these models are very expensive to build, and that if there's a competitive advantage to be had, Google should probably try to retain it. But even with that all being true, real people (typically some thoughtful researchers) build these models. And my point is: _there really are ethical reasons to keep large generative…

I'm curious what ethical reasons you think require that new technology only be used in secret and without oversight by trillion dollar companies. This is supposed to be AI safety? "Do whatever you want, just make sure you conceal the results and impede progress and understanding."

What reasons necessitate keeping image or video generation models private that wouldn't also argue for keeping animation software or picture editing tools private? Should we somehow prevent such tools from getting better or easier or stop people from educating others on how to use them?

No, that's crazy. If the tools are so dangerous we can't trust the public to have them then they are way too dangerous to trust Google with them. If it were actually true that Google was developing AI too dangerous for the public, then we should storm the Google headquarters, kill their engineers, and burn their data centers.

Of course it's not true. Google is developing image and video generation models and equivalent versions will be open source by the year's end I expect. These models aren't especially dangerous. Yes, people will use them to be racist or mean, same as they use their phones or computers or books or whatever to be those things.

As a final note, it's obviously not true that GPT-3 was kept private for the "ethics" reason. I can buy GPT-3 generations now for 2 cents per 1k tokens generated. There is no real oversight into how these generations are used and you could absolutely use them to power social media bots or whatever you are concerned with. The reason they keep GPT-3 private but sell access to it is not because they want to be ethical, but because they want to sell access to it.

Re: Imagen Video: high definition video generation with diffusion models

#403
post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly suspect you’ve never been on the end of an internet doxxing/hate brigade if you can’t imagine how this could be used to make someone’s life a living hell. I’ll explain again that I think they can be used for bad actions, and also that they should still be released, because the benefits will outweigh the negatives. It does not hurt to admit that some things can be dangerous when used in nefarious ways. No o…

I totally agree. People often argue that photoshop has been around forever and so on. Creating sophisticated pornographic video of any individual is brand new. Creating an app that realistically removes clothing from any photo is new technology. I actually just now came up with an idea for a browser plug-in that removes clothing from every image loaded.

> browser plug-in that removes clothing from every image loaded

Yep! Remove clothing and make-up to show everyone as they really are!

You can call it the "ugly truth" plugin.

Re: Imagen Video: high definition video generation with diffusion models

#404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think that is a good example, because the harm in that case is the embarrassment and you can achieve the same results in 10 minutes with any image editing software. For AI image generation to cause harm specifically, the harm has to be consequent to the additional realism. IMO most of the harm from AI is likely to come from people not believing things that are real, and dismissing reality with “that’s just a…

> the harm in that case is the embarrassment and you can achieve the same results in 10 minutes with any image editing software The harm is not the "embarrassment" of seeing someone in the likeness of yourself (or your son, your friend, your partner, etc) doing something shameful. The harm is the fact that people are very likely to believe it is true and it's not a fake obviously edited photo or video. You can disagr…

Further to this point, there is plenty of collected evidence of the harms this kind of image-based abuse, of both real (sometimes coerced or often surreptitiously taken) and faked images:

See, for instance, this study of "sextortion" in minors:

https://respect.international/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Sex...

Re: Imagen Video: high definition video generation with diffusion models

#407
post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean recreating specific individuals’ likenesses in compromising images (or even worse, video). We’re not at that point yet Yes, we are. Open source stable diffusion can be trained on any person's images, as long as you have around 20 from different angles. Costs around 50 cents on rented GPUs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqeo3oDP6Qg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m__xadX0z0

And people will get accustomed to (i.e. not take seriously) these new AI-generated images like they have with photoshopped images. "Ethicists" act like society will somehow not adapt to this tech like they have with all the tech that came before it. I put ethicists in quotes because the arguments they use don't hold up to scrutiny and don't seem to be motivated by real ethical concerns. At least not to me.

I think your are right about society adapting to this tech, and I don't think these AI technologies can or should be contained.

But. The Photoshop argument is a bit tiresome. AI will bring about a fundamental shift in content creation and it will disrupt how we treat media as a whole.

Photoshop and other manual technologies are naturally gatekept by the required skill, effort and source images. Once AI media generation matures, all that goes out the window. Anyone will be able to convincingly fake anything with almost no effort and zero traceability.

That shouldn't be downplayed. The concerns are real.

Re: Imagen Video: high definition video generation with diffusion models

#408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may want to familiarize yourself with this thought experiment and think how a slightly modified version applies to AIs and their output: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_machine As to whether I am an outlier: Hundreds of thousands of people worldwide watch Magnus Carlsen. How many have watched AlphaZero play chess when it came about and how many watch it when it ceased to be a novelty?

Totally different. Watching a display of skill, where you marvel at how much better the demonstrator is than yourself obviously has no value if the demonstrator is a machine, but then it is plainly visible that the activity has little intrinsic entertainment value and entertainment value comes from the story and personal arc of the performer. This is different from a movie where nobody really cares about the personal…

>where nobody really cares about the personal arc of the actor

Speak for yourself. Actors do have fans, and a lot of them. Their personal lives are subjects of interest for a reason.

So, no, not totally different at all.

Re: Imagen Video: high definition video generation with diffusion models

#410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I want to watch AI-generated content?

It'll eventually get to the point where it's high quality and the media you consume will be generated just for you based on your individual preferences, rather than a curated list of already made options made for widespread audiences.

A big part of entertainment's appeal is having an experience/frame of reference to share with other people. Personalized entertainment doesn't offer that.

I am also extremely skeptical of the ability/need so serve at individual level instead of niches (as today).

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