4 ms·

This isn't really creativity is it? I like to call stuff like this statistical copying, and indeed, the linked Wikipedia article on GANs says: > Given a traini

by bmitc 5y ago

This isn't really creativity is it? I like to call stuff like this statistical copying, and indeed, the linked Wikipedia article on GANs says: > Given a training set, this technique learns to generate new data with the same statistics as the training set. There isn't a creative process here nor any creative introspection going on. While the technical results are impressive, this article does not address creativity even superficially, and just slaps the label on. There isn't any AI either. It's machine learning, i.e., statistical models and algorithms.

liuru 5y ago
read the bottom! The part about creativity is on the bottom :D
zaik 5y ago
> There isn't any AI either. It's machine learning, i.e., statistical models and algorithms. I always thaught those were synonyms.
- xcambar 5y ago
  Both the A and the I in AI are debatable terms. The sole definition of intelligence is under heavy load of reconsideration the last decades with the emergence of a better knowledge of animal cognition, for example.
  - kortex 5y ago
    Why is the A[rtificial] under debate? It's not natural (biological) intelligence, unless one goes the route "humans are a part of nature therefore the things we make like plastic and skyscrapers and hamburgers are natural".
    - xcambar 5y ago
      It needs to be wondered whether drawing a face or winning a game of go may or may not actually be real intelligence, only very narrow. We like to think that AI is only statistical models, which may be true (is true?), but we have no idea that what happens in brains is anything else than a highly optimised, deconstructed, such model. Current datasets need 10ks pics of a cat while a kid only need to see a cat twice? Good for the kid, but there's no hint there's a fundamental difference of process.
- isaacimagine 5y ago
  There isn't any I either. It's biological learning, i.e. neuronal models and feedback loops. /s?
- Gigachad 5y ago
  Purists seem to define AI as anything that is currently too hard for computers. Wasn't long ago that chess engines with no neural networks or machine learning were being called AIs.
- bmitc 5y ago
  AI has been co-opted as a synonym for machine learning, if only for marketing purposes. Machine learning existed for decades before it was "renamed" as AI. I just don't see anything intelligent yet. People somehow have gotten confused with the success of machine learning being treated as intelligence. We have a lot of statistical models of things that are very successful, but those aren't considered intelligent. For reason, machine learning telling you something about data has suddenly been treated as AI. Machine learning can do some impressive things, but I think its short-sighted to equate AI and machine learning. Intelligence is really a tough thing. Watching a video of even a single-cell organism displays a sort of intelligence and behavior far beyond anything I've seen of machine learning. So why is it intelligent? Or is it intelligent? I'm not entirely sure, but my point is that machine learning is orders of magnitude incapable of describing (i.e., modeling) even the simplest self-directed and self-adapting behavior that we see in the real world.
aniforprez 5y ago
"create" doesn't necessarily imply "creativity" so I'm not sure why this is brought up. Of course generated images right now don't have any creativity attached to them and that's not the purpose of this article. All the images shown seem to mimic the generic "anime" art style and seems close enough to what a human draws which seems to have been the goal
numpad0 5y ago
I find odd that no one is tracing back portions of generative arts back to publicly posted sources. Internet horde of bored people were used to be good at finding where an unattributed pieces come from. Are these really generalized and stored in highly abstract forms? I doubt it...
plutonorm 5y ago
What makes you think human creativity is anything more than statistical modelling? What else can it be, based as it is in a physical substrate? Objections like yours are usually a sneaky way of implying that human consciousness breaks free of the physical world, cartesian dualism hidden within people's arguments. "It cannot be creative because it's only bits/cogs/linear algebra/etc/etc." Well describe to me the way it is different to the processes of the human brain? "There is some magic sauce in the human brain we do not yet understand!", well then how do you know that this magic sauce does not exist within the statistical models inside the computer? I find it very irritating that such shallow reasoning prevails amongst intelligent people.
- omnicognate 5y ago
  > What else can it be, based as it is in a physical substrate? This is no less shallow reasoning. The question of whether the academic field of statistical modelling already contains the necessary ideas to produce strong AI is not decided, and won't be unless/until somebody makes a strong AI. People have different intuitions about what the answer will be and until it can be determined empirically I suggest treating them as what they are: intuitions.
  - FeepingCreature 5y ago
    Sure, but I see no reason to not treat things like GPT-3 and TWDNE as evidence. If it looks like a creativity, and quacks like a creativity, then we should at least entertain the notion that we have a small artistic process on our hands.
    - omnicognate 5y ago
      Of course we can entertain the notion. We just shouldn't pretend the question is settled one way or the other like the two comments above and pointlessly argue about it on hn. Personally I'm inclined to see things like GPT-3 as qualitatively different to human creativity, but I don't claim to know this for a fact.
noobermin 5y ago
One of the things being an anime fan has made me realize is how the industry goes through phases in everything: gimmicks, art styles, tropes, etc. This can at best replicate what exists, but it cannot create new styles which honestly comes from the creative process of hundreds to thousands of artists creating and influencing one another. People keep forgetting that you really can only fit to data you have. Extrapolation exists as a concept but the requisite intuitive knowledge needed in order to create something new that can be successful is hard to understand even by humans at this point (how much of the business press is full of gimmicky blogposts about how to be successful, full of contradictory anecdata, opinions, advices), I don't even know how AI researchers would go about tackling that. I am not an AI person but as a plain old scientist I know extrapolation without intuition is almost always a fraught effort.
- bmitc 5y ago
  > but it cannot create new styles Sure it can, but then it's not considered anime anymore. I think this sentiment is confusing genre with training set constraints. A new model is not required for some artist to do something different from anime or even an anime artist to do something different. Humans can self-adjust all with approximately the same base model (whatever that is).
commandlinefan 5y ago
> This isn't really creativity is it? I like to call stuff like this statistical copying Or, through decades of AI research, we're just now starting to better understand what actual creativity really "is"?

by bmitc 5y ago

liuru 5y ago

read the bottom! The part about creativity is on the bottom :D

zaik 5y ago

> There isn't any AI either. It's machine learning, i.e., statistical models and algorithms. I always thaught those were synonyms.

xcambar 5y ago
Both the A and the I in AI are debatable terms. The sole definition of intelligence is under heavy load of reconsideration the last decades with the emergence of a better knowledge of animal cognition, for example.
- kortex 5y ago
  Why is the A[rtificial] under debate? It's not natural (biological) intelligence, unless one goes the route "humans are a part of nature therefore the things we make like plastic and skyscrapers and hamburgers are natural".
  - xcambar 5y ago
    It needs to be wondered whether drawing a face or winning a game of go may or may not actually be real intelligence, only very narrow. We like to think that AI is only statistical models, which may be true (is true?), but we have no idea that what happens in brains is anything else than a highly optimised, deconstructed, such model. Current datasets need 10ks pics of a cat while a kid only need to see a cat twice? Good for the kid, but there's no hint there's a fundamental difference of process.
isaacimagine 5y ago
There isn't any I either. It's biological learning, i.e. neuronal models and feedback loops. /s?
Gigachad 5y ago
Purists seem to define AI as anything that is currently too hard for computers. Wasn't long ago that chess engines with no neural networks or machine learning were being called AIs.
bmitc 5y ago
AI has been co-opted as a synonym for machine learning, if only for marketing purposes. Machine learning existed for decades before it was "renamed" as AI. I just don't see anything intelligent yet. People somehow have gotten confused with the success of machine learning being treated as intelligence. We have a lot of statistical models of things that are very successful, but those aren't considered intelligent. For reason, machine learning telling you something about data has suddenly been treated as AI. Machine learning can do some impressive things, but I think its short-sighted to equate AI and machine learning. Intelligence is really a tough thing. Watching a video of even a single-cell organism displays a sort of intelligence and behavior far beyond anything I've seen of machine learning. So why is it intelligent? Or is it intelligent? I'm not entirely sure, but my point is that machine learning is orders of magnitude incapable of describing (i.e., modeling) even the simplest self-directed and self-adapting behavior that we see in the real world.

aniforprez 5y ago

"create" doesn't necessarily imply "creativity" so I'm not sure why this is brought up. Of course generated images right now don't have any creativity attached to them and that's not the purpose of this article. All the images shown seem to mimic the generic "anime" art style and seems close enough to what a human draws which seems to have been the goal

numpad0 5y ago

I find odd that no one is tracing back portions of generative arts back to publicly posted sources. Internet horde of bored people were used to be good at finding where an unattributed pieces come from. Are these really generalized and stored in highly abstract forms? I doubt it...

plutonorm 5y ago

What makes you think human creativity is anything more than statistical modelling? What else can it be, based as it is in a physical substrate? Objections like yours are usually a sneaky way of implying that human consciousness breaks free of the physical world, cartesian dualism hidden within people's arguments. "It cannot be creative because it's only bits/cogs/linear algebra/etc/etc." Well describe to me the way it is different to the processes of the human brain? "There is some magic sauce in the human brain we do not yet understand!", well then how do you know that this magic sauce does not exist within the statistical models inside the computer? I find it very irritating that such shallow reasoning prevails amongst intelligent people.

omnicognate 5y ago
> What else can it be, based as it is in a physical substrate? This is no less shallow reasoning. The question of whether the academic field of statistical modelling already contains the necessary ideas to produce strong AI is not decided, and won't be unless/until somebody makes a strong AI. People have different intuitions about what the answer will be and until it can be determined empirically I suggest treating them as what they are: intuitions.
- FeepingCreature 5y ago
  Sure, but I see no reason to not treat things like GPT-3 and TWDNE as evidence. If it looks like a creativity, and quacks like a creativity, then we should at least entertain the notion that we have a small artistic process on our hands.
  - omnicognate 5y ago
    Of course we can entertain the notion. We just shouldn't pretend the question is settled one way or the other like the two comments above and pointlessly argue about it on hn. Personally I'm inclined to see things like GPT-3 as qualitatively different to human creativity, but I don't claim to know this for a fact.

noobermin 5y ago

One of the things being an anime fan has made me realize is how the industry goes through phases in everything: gimmicks, art styles, tropes, etc. This can at best replicate what exists, but it cannot create new styles which honestly comes from the creative process of hundreds to thousands of artists creating and influencing one another. People keep forgetting that you really can only fit to data you have. Extrapolation exists as a concept but the requisite intuitive knowledge needed in order to create something new that can be successful is hard to understand even by humans at this point (how much of the business press is full of gimmicky blogposts about how to be successful, full of contradictory anecdata, opinions, advices), I don't even know how AI researchers would go about tackling that. I am not an AI person but as a plain old scientist I know extrapolation without intuition is almost always a fraught effort.

bmitc 5y ago
> but it cannot create new styles Sure it can, but then it's not considered anime anymore. I think this sentiment is confusing genre with training set constraints. A new model is not required for some artist to do something different from anime or even an anime artist to do something different. Humans can self-adjust all with approximately the same base model (whatever that is).

commandlinefan 5y ago

> This isn't really creativity is it? I like to call stuff like this statistical copying Or, through decades of AI research, we're just now starting to better understand what actual creativity really "is"?