5 ms·

One thing I find really interesting about the DALL-E-2 is that the popular blog name ("DALL-E-2") never shows up in either of the research papers that describe

by oofbey 5y ago

One thing I find really interesting about the DALL-E-2 is that the popular blog name ("DALL-E-2") never shows up in either of the research papers that describe it. The paper commonly referred to as DALL-E-2 calls its own algorithm "unCLIP". UnCLIP is _heavily_ based on a paper from a few months earlier called GLIDE - in fact you can't really understand the unCLIP paper by reading it without first reading the GLIDE paper. I suspect what's going on is that OpenAI has decoupled their PR activities from their science activities. They told the researchers to publish papers when they're ready, and then the PR apparatus decides when one is good enough to be crowned "DALL-E-2" and writes a blog post about it.

KaoruAoiShiho 5y ago
I don't get it, isn't this how literally every product launch works.
- radicaldreamer 5y ago
  I don't know why you're being voted down, internal/research names are often way weirder and decided on ad-hoc by the researchers themselves and then a good PM comes in when product-ionizing and part of this is deciding on a catchy name for public use.
  - oofbey 5y ago
    The phrasing "I don't get it" is fairly rude - it implies the post is obvious to the point of not being worth mentioning. However obvious this might seem to somebody, I would point out that turning AI research papers turn into products is hardly commonplace.
SleekEagle 5y ago
I noticed that as well! It confused me a bit at first. They say that their "image generation stack" is referred to as unCLIP, and I was trying to figure out how it's distinct from DALL-E 2 at first! My only guess would be that unCLIP is the end-to-end image generation model, but if the model is used for manipulation, interpolation, or variations, then it is referred to as DALL-E 2. So unCLIP is a subset of DALL-E 2.
FrenchDevRemote 5y ago
Maybe it's because there is more features on the openai websites? for exemple with GPT, you get different models, different templates, a playground, an api etc...
axg11 5y ago
This is only surprising if you're not familiar with product launches that result from R&D. In this case DALL-E 2 is the consumer-facing name, unCLIP is the name used during research and in this case for publication. OpenAI may also have a further internal codename that they used for the project. Currently DALL-E 2 access is limited but there are lots of reasons to believe that OpenAI will try to productize Dall-E 2 as an API. If you're selling a product, you need a product name.
- TaylorAlexander 5y ago
  I honestly hope they don’t productize it until they can build a dataset of images that have been explicitly licensed for remixes without attribution. Having proven that the system works, they could now justify the effort to build a very large public dataset of CC0 images. For example they could encourage Twitter to add image licensing options and use the alt text of images to form the image description. They could then encourage twitter to encourage the use of licensing and alt text, and foster a culture of open sharing. There are already 500 million images in Creative Commons, hopefully many with an appropriate license for reuse without attribution. Otherwise what I am hearing is that artists online are upset their work has been incorporated in to DALL-E without their consent. A system that rips off artists and then puts them out of work would make OpenAI and the AI community look bad. Instead we could move forward with better licensing and alt text features for major platforms and draw in an open community rather than taking what has not been licensed for this kind of use.
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
    Same with all these big models. GPT-3 and codex benefit from all the text and code that has been made publicly visible without giving back. At least e.g. imagenet classifiers had to take the effort to label the images they scraped. IP laws need to catch up, so that ML models that use unlicensed public content have to give back in some way.
  - axg11 5y ago
    I disagree. If it’s on the web it should be fair game. These models are not directly cutting and pasting, it’s my opinion that they’re learning some higher level features and attributes. Admittedly, not everyone shares that opinion. Humans don’t exclusively learn from licensed content and I don’t see why our learning algorithms should be restricted to that.
phailhaus 5y ago
Unrelated: I've noticed the common use of underscores for emphasis in HN comments. Why use that when italics are supported via asterisks? Like this?
- bern4444 5y ago
  Markdown syntax is that a single underscore around words _like this_ renders it italicized.
  - phailhaus 5y ago
    Sure, but HN doesn't. I'm trying to understand why I see so many comments using underscores when only asterisks work.
    - LeifCarrotson 5y ago
      I think it's a combination of Markdown being completely readable in plain text especially if you're familiar with the syntax and even if you're not. Similarly, I see a lot of people using TeX-style mathematics, it's not particularly readable but "The quadratic formula is $x=\frac{-b\pm\sqrt{b^2-4ac}}{2a}$" is a decent way of representing the formula to people fluent in LaTeX even in plaintext conditions. I suppose there's also likely to be a bit of muscle memory where people accustomed to typing in Github/Stack Overflow/Reddit markdown use it on other systems, and even if they see it's not supported it's good enough to not need editing. I don't think it's particularly worthwhile to learn a new comment format (one that's not even linked or described in the comment editor, for that matter) for every site.
      - phailhaus 5y ago
        Aren't asterisks standard in Markdown syntax too?
    - tingletech 5y ago
      this was also a common convention during the usenet news era
tmabraham 5y ago
This behavior is not exclusive to OpenAI. NVIDIA did this too. Originally StyleGAN3 was published under the name "Alias-free GAN" and the paper itself uses that terminology.
ShannonLimiter 5y ago
DALL-E is mentioned in several places in the paper. DALL-E 2 specifically is on page 18 and the system card: https://github.com/openai/dalle-2-preview/blob/main/system-card.md https://github.com/openai/dalle-2-preview/blob/main/system-c... DALL-E 2 = the stack of unCLIP and the image generator.
dwighttk 5y ago
unCLIP as in “this algorithm is NOT going to be told to make paper clips resulting in all the mass in the solar system converted into paper clips”?

by oofbey 5y ago

KaoruAoiShiho 5y ago

I don't get it, isn't this how literally every product launch works.

radicaldreamer 5y ago
I don't know why you're being voted down, internal/research names are often way weirder and decided on ad-hoc by the researchers themselves and then a good PM comes in when product-ionizing and part of this is deciding on a catchy name for public use.
- oofbey 5y ago
  The phrasing "I don't get it" is fairly rude - it implies the post is obvious to the point of not being worth mentioning. However obvious this might seem to somebody, I would point out that turning AI research papers turn into products is hardly commonplace.

SleekEagle 5y ago

I noticed that as well! It confused me a bit at first. They say that their "image generation stack" is referred to as unCLIP, and I was trying to figure out how it's distinct from DALL-E 2 at first! My only guess would be that unCLIP is the end-to-end image generation model, but if the model is used for manipulation, interpolation, or variations, then it is referred to as DALL-E 2. So unCLIP is a subset of DALL-E 2.

FrenchDevRemote 5y ago

Maybe it's because there is more features on the openai websites? for exemple with GPT, you get different models, different templates, a playground, an api etc...

axg11 5y ago

This is only surprising if you're not familiar with product launches that result from R&D. In this case DALL-E 2 is the consumer-facing name, unCLIP is the name used during research and in this case for publication. OpenAI may also have a further internal codename that they used for the project. Currently DALL-E 2 access is limited but there are lots of reasons to believe that OpenAI will try to productize Dall-E 2 as an API. If you're selling a product, you need a product name.

TaylorAlexander 5y ago
I honestly hope they don’t productize it until they can build a dataset of images that have been explicitly licensed for remixes without attribution. Having proven that the system works, they could now justify the effort to build a very large public dataset of CC0 images. For example they could encourage Twitter to add image licensing options and use the alt text of images to form the image description. They could then encourage twitter to encourage the use of licensing and alt text, and foster a culture of open sharing. There are already 500 million images in Creative Commons, hopefully many with an appropriate license for reuse without attribution. Otherwise what I am hearing is that artists online are upset their work has been incorporated in to DALL-E without their consent. A system that rips off artists and then puts them out of work would make OpenAI and the AI community look bad. Instead we could move forward with better licensing and alt text features for major platforms and draw in an open community rather than taking what has not been licensed for this kind of use.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
  Same with all these big models. GPT-3 and codex benefit from all the text and code that has been made publicly visible without giving back. At least e.g. imagenet classifiers had to take the effort to label the images they scraped. IP laws need to catch up, so that ML models that use unlicensed public content have to give back in some way.
- axg11 5y ago
  I disagree. If it’s on the web it should be fair game. These models are not directly cutting and pasting, it’s my opinion that they’re learning some higher level features and attributes. Admittedly, not everyone shares that opinion. Humans don’t exclusively learn from licensed content and I don’t see why our learning algorithms should be restricted to that.

phailhaus 5y ago

Unrelated: I've noticed the common use of underscores for emphasis in HN comments. Why use that when italics are supported via asterisks? Like this?

bern4444 5y ago
Markdown syntax is that a single underscore around words _like this_ renders it italicized.
- phailhaus 5y ago
  Sure, but HN doesn't. I'm trying to understand why I see so many comments using underscores when only asterisks work.
  - LeifCarrotson 5y ago
    I think it's a combination of Markdown being completely readable in plain text especially if you're familiar with the syntax and even if you're not. Similarly, I see a lot of people using TeX-style mathematics, it's not particularly readable but "The quadratic formula is $x=\frac{-b\pm\sqrt{b^2-4ac}}{2a}$" is a decent way of representing the formula to people fluent in LaTeX even in plaintext conditions. I suppose there's also likely to be a bit of muscle memory where people accustomed to typing in Github/Stack Overflow/Reddit markdown use it on other systems, and even if they see it's not supported it's good enough to not need editing. I don't think it's particularly worthwhile to learn a new comment format (one that's not even linked or described in the comment editor, for that matter) for every site.
    - phailhaus 5y ago
      Aren't asterisks standard in Markdown syntax too?
  - tingletech 5y ago
    this was also a common convention during the usenet news era

tmabraham 5y ago

This behavior is not exclusive to OpenAI. NVIDIA did this too. Originally StyleGAN3 was published under the name "Alias-free GAN" and the paper itself uses that terminology.

ShannonLimiter 5y ago

DALL-E is mentioned in several places in the paper. DALL-E 2 specifically is on page 18 and the system card: https://github.com/openai/dalle-2-preview/blob/main/system-card.md https://github.com/openai/dalle-2-preview/blob/main/system-c... DALL-E 2 = the stack of unCLIP and the image generator.

dwighttk 5y ago

unCLIP as in “this algorithm is NOT going to be told to make paper clips resulting in all the mass in the solar system converted into paper clips”?