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The woman appeared once, and they kept combining it with different prompts. So it stayed in the subsequent images. https://twitter.com/supercomposite/status/15

The woman appeared once, and they kept combining it with different prompts. So it stayed in the subsequent images. https://twitter.com/supercomposite/status/1567164929903394816 https://twitter.com/supercomposite/status/156716492990339481... https://twitter.com/sheslostheplot/status/1567370919487893504 https://twitter.com/sheslostheplot/status/156737091948789350...

ddalex 4y ago
The interesting bit is not that it remains there, but that it seems to generate dark images (gore, violence) regardless of the input.
- vlunkr 4y ago
  I know very little about this stuff, but doesn’t that just mean that the algorithm considers the original image to contain gore/violence?
  - nerdponx 4y ago
    It at least considers the original image adjacent to gore/violence, but there's something uncanny about how the "Loab" image itself is not a gory or violent image. There's something funky going on along a "concept axis" involving the upside-down triangles on the face, the rosacea, and the overall bleak composition of the image.
    - towaway15463 4y ago
      The image looks a lot like the haggard female protagonists or victims in a lot of horror movies so it could just be a composite of those. The rosacea might be due to it confusing blood splattered faces with medical images. Honestly it just looks like a still image from a horror trailer to me.
- nerdponx 4y ago
  I think it is somewhat interesting that it remains there, apparently after many many "generations" of combining with other images. It's also interesting to consider what this image was originally "far" away from. There are a couple of good followup threads exploring how such a thing might come about in the "latent space" of the model: https://twitter.com/jthteo/status/1567418273628655617 https://twitter.com/jthteo/status/1567418273628655617 https://twitter.com/mattskala/status/1567300206969982979 https://twitter.com/mattskala/status/1567300206969982979
  - scambier 4y ago
    For me it kinda makes sense: the portrait/person is an important feature of the image, so it's heavily weighted in the generation, producing another image with that portrait/person, and so on. I find it more interesting that the visage itself is still recognizable between generations, as if it's not "any person", but a very specific visage.
- kamranjon 4y ago
  Isn’t this just a result of the negative weights?
vlunkr 4y ago
> I was ripping Loab apart, and putting her back together. She is an emergent island in the latent space that we don't know how to locate with text queries. But for the AI, Loab was an equally strong point of convergence as a verbal concept. And really, it was usually stronger! The nonsense words of someone who really wants to be the creator of the next big creepypasta.
- lm28469 4y ago
  Or someone who's pressing buttons and has absolutely zero fucking ideas of what the underlying tech id and does
  - wruza 4y ago
    Reminds of most humanities.
    - rafram 4y ago
      That’s a very ignorant statement.
  - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
    > But I can confirm Loab exists in multiple image-generation AI models Or they're lying and this is just a stunt to generate buzz.
- gatonegro 4y ago
  > The nonsense words of someone who really wants to be the creator of the next big creepypasta. It took them about 24 hours to come up with a merch store[1] for this character, too. [1] https://twitter.com/supercomposite/status/1567565201825845250 https://twitter.com/supercomposite/status/156756520182584525...
  - vlunkr 4y ago
    I suppose they might as well while they’ve got their 5 minutes of fame.
philippejara 4y ago
thanks for the links, boggles the mind the article about the twitter thread and the images would not link to the twitter thread nor show more than a couple images. All the references in the vice article are only to other vice articles by the same writer... The URL should probably link to the twitter thread in question, the articles adds pretty much nothing and removes tens of images and commentary by the creator.
- nkingsy 4y ago
  I had the opposite thought. Couldn’t properly see the images because I don’t have twitter. I even signed up recently just so I could click links and they immediately locked my account for being a bot.
  - AlchemistCamp 4y ago
    Replace “twitter.com” with “nitter.net” in the URL and you can see a mirror.
godelski 4y ago
It is also important to note that they are specifically using features distant from one another (they are manipulating the latent and not using textual prompts to reproduce the face). It really does feel engineered to be creepy. Looking at the images closely it really does seem like a big reason for the creepiness is that there is a combined masculine and feminine features. That both are strong and since our brains are good at detecting human faces we instantly realize that something is off. Then there are the shadows on the face. The lighting is all wonky. Shadows are cast at weird angles. Either dark on the eyes compared to what should be seen or the opposite. Same goes for the mouth and chin area. Stable Diffusion and Midjourney aren't very good at human faces (specifically eyes, mouth, and skin textures), so that's going to add an extra creepy factor, especially combined with the negative weighting. But you are spot on in noting that Vice is engaging in clickbait and misinformation. The tweets are purposefully being creepy because that is the art style of cryptids. But as your second link clearly shows, people aren't going to randomly find images like this (and let's be real, I wouldn't recognize this as the same person unless you told me they were). Stop engaging in melodrama Vice. You can't do that if you're claiming to report news.
- adamrezich 4y ago
  > Stop engaging in melodrama Vice. what's the point in telling a fish to stop swimming
  - godelski 4y ago
    Maybe others will stop following the fish.

ddalex 4y ago

The interesting bit is not that it remains there, but that it seems to generate dark images (gore, violence) regardless of the input.

vlunkr 4y ago
I know very little about this stuff, but doesn’t that just mean that the algorithm considers the original image to contain gore/violence?
- nerdponx 4y ago
  It at least considers the original image adjacent to gore/violence, but there's something uncanny about how the "Loab" image itself is not a gory or violent image. There's something funky going on along a "concept axis" involving the upside-down triangles on the face, the rosacea, and the overall bleak composition of the image.
  - towaway15463 4y ago
    The image looks a lot like the haggard female protagonists or victims in a lot of horror movies so it could just be a composite of those. The rosacea might be due to it confusing blood splattered faces with medical images. Honestly it just looks like a still image from a horror trailer to me.
nerdponx 4y ago
I think it is somewhat interesting that it remains there, apparently after many many "generations" of combining with other images. It's also interesting to consider what this image was originally "far" away from. There are a couple of good followup threads exploring how such a thing might come about in the "latent space" of the model: https://twitter.com/jthteo/status/1567418273628655617 https://twitter.com/jthteo/status/1567418273628655617 https://twitter.com/mattskala/status/1567300206969982979 https://twitter.com/mattskala/status/1567300206969982979
- scambier 4y ago
  For me it kinda makes sense: the portrait/person is an important feature of the image, so it's heavily weighted in the generation, producing another image with that portrait/person, and so on. I find it more interesting that the visage itself is still recognizable between generations, as if it's not "any person", but a very specific visage.
kamranjon 4y ago
Isn’t this just a result of the negative weights?

vlunkr 4y ago

> I was ripping Loab apart, and putting her back together. She is an emergent island in the latent space that we don't know how to locate with text queries. But for the AI, Loab was an equally strong point of convergence as a verbal concept. And really, it was usually stronger! The nonsense words of someone who really wants to be the creator of the next big creepypasta.

lm28469 4y ago
Or someone who's pressing buttons and has absolutely zero fucking ideas of what the underlying tech id and does
- wruza 4y ago
  Reminds of most humanities.
  - rafram 4y ago
    That’s a very ignorant statement.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  > But I can confirm Loab exists in multiple image-generation AI models Or they're lying and this is just a stunt to generate buzz.
gatonegro 4y ago
> The nonsense words of someone who really wants to be the creator of the next big creepypasta. It took them about 24 hours to come up with a merch store[1] for this character, too. [1] https://twitter.com/supercomposite/status/1567565201825845250 https://twitter.com/supercomposite/status/156756520182584525...
- vlunkr 4y ago
  I suppose they might as well while they’ve got their 5 minutes of fame.

philippejara 4y ago

thanks for the links, boggles the mind the article about the twitter thread and the images would not link to the twitter thread nor show more than a couple images. All the references in the vice article are only to other vice articles by the same writer... The URL should probably link to the twitter thread in question, the articles adds pretty much nothing and removes tens of images and commentary by the creator.

nkingsy 4y ago
I had the opposite thought. Couldn’t properly see the images because I don’t have twitter. I even signed up recently just so I could click links and they immediately locked my account for being a bot.
- AlchemistCamp 4y ago
  Replace “twitter.com” with “nitter.net” in the URL and you can see a mirror.

godelski 4y ago

It is also important to note that they are specifically using features distant from one another (they are manipulating the latent and not using textual prompts to reproduce the face). It really does feel engineered to be creepy. Looking at the images closely it really does seem like a big reason for the creepiness is that there is a combined masculine and feminine features. That both are strong and since our brains are good at detecting human faces we instantly realize that something is off. Then there are the shadows on the face. The lighting is all wonky. Shadows are cast at weird angles. Either dark on the eyes compared to what should be seen or the opposite. Same goes for the mouth and chin area. Stable Diffusion and Midjourney aren't very good at human faces (specifically eyes, mouth, and skin textures), so that's going to add an extra creepy factor, especially combined with the negative weighting. But you are spot on in noting that Vice is engaging in clickbait and misinformation. The tweets are purposefully being creepy because that is the art style of cryptids. But as your second link clearly shows, people aren't going to randomly find images like this (and let's be real, I wouldn't recognize this as the same person unless you told me they were). Stop engaging in melodrama Vice. You can't do that if you're claiming to report news.

adamrezich 4y ago
> Stop engaging in melodrama Vice. what's the point in telling a fish to stop swimming
- godelski 4y ago
  Maybe others will stop following the fish.