4 ms·

Why is this stuff interesting to people? You could write an algorithm that does image recognition and cut and paste from a plethora of image resources and buil

by bmitc 4y ago

Why is this stuff interesting to people? You could write an algorithm that does image recognition and cut and paste from a plethora of image resources and build a similar catalog of actual products from a given time period. This just looks like the typical machine learning throw up of dumping a bunch of statistically averaged and collaged images that's then been blurred as if someone ran their finger across the image and random text. It isn't clear to me where the intrigue is aside from a "hmph, I guess (?) that's cool".

zoover2020 4y ago
You must be fun at parties
- dang 4y ago
  "Edit out swipes." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Corollary: If editing out swipes results in an empty comment, the comment should probably not be posted.
lm28469 4y ago
> Why is this stuff interesting to people? Because by typing three words and clicking two buttons you get to claim you're an artist and your ticket for the future at the same time It's one more step in the general dumbing down of everything tech touches. You don't need skills, you don't need to devote time it, you don't even need to understand how it works, just go on a website, give them your money, write something and boom you're done I think being stuck in a content consumption cycle for a while made people slowly realise that creation is much more fulfilling than consumption, these things give them the illusion of creating things
sideshowb 4y ago
> typical machine learning throw up of dumping a bunch of statistically averaged and collaged images On the scale of my lifetime, that's a fairly new phenomenon
dwringer 4y ago
I think it's just a common sort of ex nihilo first steps example of the technology that's easy to show off to anyone, and it's a good example of how the results can be iterated and cherry-picked to filter out the most garbage-laden images to get stuff that's basically (what another commentor called) "visual lorem ipsum". There's a lot more that stable diffusion can do when there is a feedback loop between the user and the computer, but I don't think it's very easy to convey with pop articles or even long form ones - I hope one day everyone has a chance to approach models like this and learn from them in their own way, and I appreciate articles like this in their attempt to get a wider audience interested in the technology.
- bmitc 4y ago
  That’s a well balanced perspective. And I don’t mean to be a Luddite or anything, but I just don’t think I see what this will be useful for outside of the typical advertising and abusive use cases. One use case I can currently imagine, outside of advertising, is maybe storyboarding, because you don’t really care much about fidelity or even style there, and it’s primarily a scaffolding tool. However, I’m not terribly sure of the feedback loop being anywhere near that of a director or cinematographer or writer sitting down with a storyboard artist. But maybe you don’t have access to a storyboard artist. There is a valid position of asking “why do we need this?”, and I don’t think it gets asked enough in technology. One thing I am sure of is that this type of machine learning art will be abused. There is an unfortunate inevitability though with humans and technology.
  - YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
    I don't understand the motivation of the person who sees 60 hours of video uploaded to YouTube per second, 30+ new video games released on Steam per day, 100,000 songs uploaded to Spotify every day and 6,000 Tweets being made per second, and decides "You know what the World needs? A way of enabling more people to make more content faster."
simonw 4y ago
> You could write an algorithm that does image recognition and cut and paste from a plethora of image resources and build a similar catalog of actual products from a given time period. And if you did that I would think it was super interesting and cool too.

by bmitc 4y ago

zoover2020 4y ago

You must be fun at parties

dang 4y ago
"Edit out swipes." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Corollary: If editing out swipes results in an empty comment, the comment should probably not be posted.

lm28469 4y ago

> Why is this stuff interesting to people? Because by typing three words and clicking two buttons you get to claim you're an artist and your ticket for the future at the same time It's one more step in the general dumbing down of everything tech touches. You don't need skills, you don't need to devote time it, you don't even need to understand how it works, just go on a website, give them your money, write something and boom you're done I think being stuck in a content consumption cycle for a while made people slowly realise that creation is much more fulfilling than consumption, these things give them the illusion of creating things

sideshowb 4y ago

> typical machine learning throw up of dumping a bunch of statistically averaged and collaged images On the scale of my lifetime, that's a fairly new phenomenon

dwringer 4y ago

I think it's just a common sort of ex nihilo first steps example of the technology that's easy to show off to anyone, and it's a good example of how the results can be iterated and cherry-picked to filter out the most garbage-laden images to get stuff that's basically (what another commentor called) "visual lorem ipsum". There's a lot more that stable diffusion can do when there is a feedback loop between the user and the computer, but I don't think it's very easy to convey with pop articles or even long form ones - I hope one day everyone has a chance to approach models like this and learn from them in their own way, and I appreciate articles like this in their attempt to get a wider audience interested in the technology.

bmitc 4y ago
That’s a well balanced perspective. And I don’t mean to be a Luddite or anything, but I just don’t think I see what this will be useful for outside of the typical advertising and abusive use cases. One use case I can currently imagine, outside of advertising, is maybe storyboarding, because you don’t really care much about fidelity or even style there, and it’s primarily a scaffolding tool. However, I’m not terribly sure of the feedback loop being anywhere near that of a director or cinematographer or writer sitting down with a storyboard artist. But maybe you don’t have access to a storyboard artist. There is a valid position of asking “why do we need this?”, and I don’t think it gets asked enough in technology. One thing I am sure of is that this type of machine learning art will be abused. There is an unfortunate inevitability though with humans and technology.
- YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
  I don't understand the motivation of the person who sees 60 hours of video uploaded to YouTube per second, 30+ new video games released on Steam per day, 100,000 songs uploaded to Spotify every day and 6,000 Tweets being made per second, and decides "You know what the World needs? A way of enabling more people to make more content faster."

simonw 4y ago

> You could write an algorithm that does image recognition and cut and paste from a plethora of image resources and build a similar catalog of actual products from a given time period. And if you did that I would think it was super interesting and cool too.