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The maze that looks more or less like a maze at first glance is full of disconnected sections that can't be reached by each other. It's missed a really essenti

The maze that looks more or less like a maze at first glance is full of disconnected sections that can't be reached by each other. It's missed a really essential part of being a maze. (The hedge maze doesn't look like a hedge maze at all: I'm kind of surprised that DALL-E isn't able to figure out that consistent width of the passages is a part of hedge mazes). The designer photograph one is complicated and I'm not surprised that DALL-E misunderstand it. But you're cherry-picking for the apples. It didn't consistently give an picture of five apples when asked for five apples. When asked for a bowl of fruit with no apples, it gives a bowl of only apples. That's obviously strongly sub-human comprehension.

viraptor 4y ago
I totally picked the examples - some are definitely deficiencies, but I wanted to concentrate on the debatable ones. A counterpoint to the maze - it depends what we expect. If you wanted a maze designed, it would be of course a bad example. But if you wanted one painted, it's... good? If it was in a gallery, it could easily be a commentary on life with limitations, dead ends and problems we can't solve.
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
  I’d argue an unsolvable maze is art only if the artist can conceive of and understands the metaphor. Or can at least comprehend that they are doing mazes with no solution. The computer has no understanding of what it’s doing. And I don’t think you can argue that it’s interrupting a brief for a commission. Is it even producing at???
  - kian 4y ago
    I think it is the person perceiving that transforms the work into art. If they can perceive the metaphor, why does it matter if the artist cannot?
    - 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
      That could be true. But it’s a bit awkward no? A human needs to be there at the beginning to either dream up a concept and then describe it in painful detail to the computer. Or a human needs to be there at the end to sift through the results to pick out the ones that actually match some concept. In trying to think of a useful application for this: if an artist can lock down the style of the output, and then pump in a script and further description to story board things or get near final output, that could be quite useful.
jameshart 4y ago
Are you familiar with the empirical results that have been observed when you ask a human to 'draw a bicycle'? https://www.booooooom.com/2016/05/09/bicycles-built-based-on-peoples-attempts-to-draw-them-from-memory/ https://www.booooooom.com/2016/05/09/bicycles-built-based-on... People draw bicycle-like shapes, that don't quite work - they miss important details, or connect things that shouldn't be connected.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  This is a funny comparison to draw, but I don't think it's one with profound meaning: humans have trouble drawing bicycles, but the semantics of a badly-drawn bicycle are sound. This is in contrast to DALL-E, which might do an excellent job of drawing apples but otherwise misses the semantics of the query (i.e., "without apples"). In other words: humans mis-draw things because we don't always do a good job of visually apprehending the world; DALL-E mis-draws things because it doesn't really understand the problem statement.
  - native_samples 4y ago
    The semantics aren't that sound - a lot of the bikes have the seat at the very back, too far from the handlebars.
    - woodruffw 4y ago
      None of them are good, but the semantics are correct: the seat is behind the handlebars, the handlebars curve correctly, &c. The fact that humans tend to draw the pieces too far apart is more a testament to our problems drawing scale and perspective than a semantic error. (I think this would be apparent if participants were asked to draw a bicycle, followed by a bicycle without a wheel. The two drawings would be roughly as "good" in terms of quality, but the humans will correctly obey the prompt and omit one of the two wheels. I suspect DALL-E would struggle with that prompt.)
- dtech 4y ago
  This is from memory. Humans wouldn't make this (serious level) of mistakes if they had an enormous data-set of bicycles to draw from.

viraptor 4y ago

I totally picked the examples - some are definitely deficiencies, but I wanted to concentrate on the debatable ones. A counterpoint to the maze - it depends what we expect. If you wanted a maze designed, it would be of course a bad example. But if you wanted one painted, it's... good? If it was in a gallery, it could easily be a commentary on life with limitations, dead ends and problems we can't solve.

2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
I’d argue an unsolvable maze is art only if the artist can conceive of and understands the metaphor. Or can at least comprehend that they are doing mazes with no solution. The computer has no understanding of what it’s doing. And I don’t think you can argue that it’s interrupting a brief for a commission. Is it even producing at???
- kian 4y ago
  I think it is the person perceiving that transforms the work into art. If they can perceive the metaphor, why does it matter if the artist cannot?
  - 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
    That could be true. But it’s a bit awkward no? A human needs to be there at the beginning to either dream up a concept and then describe it in painful detail to the computer. Or a human needs to be there at the end to sift through the results to pick out the ones that actually match some concept. In trying to think of a useful application for this: if an artist can lock down the style of the output, and then pump in a script and further description to story board things or get near final output, that could be quite useful.

jameshart 4y ago

Are you familiar with the empirical results that have been observed when you ask a human to 'draw a bicycle'? https://www.booooooom.com/2016/05/09/bicycles-built-based-on-peoples-attempts-to-draw-them-from-memory/ https://www.booooooom.com/2016/05/09/bicycles-built-based-on... People draw bicycle-like shapes, that don't quite work - they miss important details, or connect things that shouldn't be connected.

woodruffw 4y ago
This is a funny comparison to draw, but I don't think it's one with profound meaning: humans have trouble drawing bicycles, but the semantics of a badly-drawn bicycle are sound. This is in contrast to DALL-E, which might do an excellent job of drawing apples but otherwise misses the semantics of the query (i.e., "without apples"). In other words: humans mis-draw things because we don't always do a good job of visually apprehending the world; DALL-E mis-draws things because it doesn't really understand the problem statement.
- native_samples 4y ago
  The semantics aren't that sound - a lot of the bikes have the seat at the very back, too far from the handlebars.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    None of them are good, but the semantics are correct: the seat is behind the handlebars, the handlebars curve correctly, &c. The fact that humans tend to draw the pieces too far apart is more a testament to our problems drawing scale and perspective than a semantic error. (I think this would be apparent if participants were asked to draw a bicycle, followed by a bicycle without a wheel. The two drawings would be roughly as "good" in terms of quality, but the humans will correctly obey the prompt and omit one of the two wheels. I suspect DALL-E would struggle with that prompt.)
dtech 4y ago
This is from memory. Humans wouldn't make this (serious level) of mistakes if they had an enormous data-set of bicycles to draw from.