5 ms·

Stability AI Acquires Init ML, Makers of Clipdrop Application

86 points by davidbarker 4y ago

Auracle 4y ago
Interesting. Emad was just retweeting how Clipdrop’s monocular depth estimator would work well with ControlNet. I wonder if they’ll open it up or if they’ll keep it proprietary.
- O__________O 4y ago
  Link to related tweet Emad retweeted: https://twitter.com/sudu_cb/status/1632674745031483392 https://twitter.com/sudu_cb/status/1632674745031483392
  - RobotToaster 4y ago
    Interesting, so can this be used to generate a 3d model from a photo?
    - O__________O 4y ago
      My understanding is it is a depth map, which is a 2D layer, not a fully 3D map; think of it as a 3D map from a single point of view rendered in 2D using a predefined gradient encoding.
    - nodja 4y ago
      Not one with 360 view if that's what you're thinking. See it as one of those hard halloween masks, from the front they look like the shape of a person's face, but as soon as you look at it from the side/back you just see a thin piece of plastic that has a hollowed out shape. They're useful as guidance for other image generations to also keep the same structure, or use it to generate a normal map and have dynamic lighting.
cert_curios 4y ago
Can someone shed some light on the ownership structure of Stable Diffusion? AFAIK the company getting all the attention and funding (Stability.ai incorporated in the UK) is not the one developing the tech. Development appears to originate at the university in Munich / Heidelberg (see e.g. ommer-lab.com).
- nwoli 4y ago
  They’re employing some of the main authors from that university.
- swyx 4y ago
  stable diffusion 1.0 was a one off collaboration between runway, compvis, and stability ai. (https://research.runwayml.com/the-research-origins-of-stable-difussion https://research.runwayml.com/the-research-origins-of-stable...) it seems since then the groups have gone their separate ways, with stability releasing an independent stable diffusion 2.0 and runway quite publicly distancing themselves from it https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2022/12/05/runway-ml-series-c-funding-500-million-valuation/?sh=75a88e0a2e64 https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2022/12/05/runway-ml... stability is now better funded than runway and about to close a round valuing it at 4bn according to recent reports. there's a central stability team and then it tends to fund/work with other organizations very closely like Laion, CarperAI, Harmonai, and others listed on its website (https://stability.ai/ https://stability.ai/). i am not an insider i just have read a bunch of stuff and this is my best guess right now
nwoli 4y ago
Man they’re spending so much money. It’s theirs to spend and I wish them the best but I worry about their runway when they’re the only ones really releasing high quality open source models. (I really don’t want to go back to the pre 2021 ML era.)
- f0e4c2f7 4y ago
  AI seems to be the only thing you can still easily fundraise for these days, so I don't think that's too much of an issue. The consesus seems to be that there are too many investors and not enough AI startups to invest in (in SF at least). Saw a post the other day for an AI meetup where they said they already had too many investors on the waitlist and were no longer accepting more.
  - ChatGTP 4y ago
    Honestly, is there much money to be made from these things long term? Like I know they will get “better”, but I still struggle generate something that isn’t kind of “weird”, today a horse with a harness melted into its face etc, and even if it generated picture perfect images, there is already a lot of images and art available for cheap, and a lot of competition will come along, but the thing with image generation is there’s nothing really special about it once’s it’s working to a decent enough level ? Will we just have ten services that generate similar stuff ?
    - f0e4c2f7 4y ago
      While there are lots of obstacles yes I suspect there will be quite a lot of money long term. From my perspective we're in the very early innings of another electricity like revolution. With images you get things like Hollywood being replaced[0] but the much bigger gains come from the seemingly endless list of tasks that these models can approach solving. I feel like I see a new groundbreaking application several times per week at this point[1]. With all that said I'm sure lots of startups will blow up and make no money too. While the overall wave seems very valuable to me, it's hard to predict what will be the Google and what will be the Webvan. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVT3WUa-48Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVT3WUa-48Y [1] https://twitter.com/DannyDriess/status/1632904675124035585 https://twitter.com/DannyDriess/status/1632904675124035585
O__________O 4y ago
Since the terms of the deal are not public, anyone have any idea how to estimate value of the deal. For example: how much Init ML raised prior to its acquisition and common comparable multiples; actually monthly active users and comparable price per user; etc.

86 points by davidbarker 4y ago

Interesting. Emad was just retweeting how Clipdrop’s monocular depth estimator would work well with ControlNet. I wonder if they’ll open it up or if they’ll keep it proprietary.

O__________O 4y ago
Link to related tweet Emad retweeted: https://twitter.com/sudu_cb/status/1632674745031483392 https://twitter.com/sudu_cb/status/1632674745031483392
- RobotToaster 4y ago
  Interesting, so can this be used to generate a 3d model from a photo?
  - O__________O 4y ago
    My understanding is it is a depth map, which is a 2D layer, not a fully 3D map; think of it as a 3D map from a single point of view rendered in 2D using a predefined gradient encoding.
  - nodja 4y ago
    Not one with 360 view if that's what you're thinking. See it as one of those hard halloween masks, from the front they look like the shape of a person's face, but as soon as you look at it from the side/back you just see a thin piece of plastic that has a hollowed out shape. They're useful as guidance for other image generations to also keep the same structure, or use it to generate a normal map and have dynamic lighting.

cert_curios 4y ago

Can someone shed some light on the ownership structure of Stable Diffusion? AFAIK the company getting all the attention and funding (Stability.ai incorporated in the UK) is not the one developing the tech. Development appears to originate at the university in Munich / Heidelberg (see e.g. ommer-lab.com).

nwoli 4y ago
They’re employing some of the main authors from that university.
swyx 4y ago
stable diffusion 1.0 was a one off collaboration between runway, compvis, and stability ai. (https://research.runwayml.com/the-research-origins-of-stable-difussion https://research.runwayml.com/the-research-origins-of-stable...) it seems since then the groups have gone their separate ways, with stability releasing an independent stable diffusion 2.0 and runway quite publicly distancing themselves from it https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2022/12/05/runway-ml-series-c-funding-500-million-valuation/?sh=75a88e0a2e64 https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2022/12/05/runway-ml... stability is now better funded than runway and about to close a round valuing it at 4bn according to recent reports. there's a central stability team and then it tends to fund/work with other organizations very closely like Laion, CarperAI, Harmonai, and others listed on its website (https://stability.ai/ https://stability.ai/). i am not an insider i just have read a bunch of stuff and this is my best guess right now

nwoli 4y ago

Man they’re spending so much money. It’s theirs to spend and I wish them the best but I worry about their runway when they’re the only ones really releasing high quality open source models. (I really don’t want to go back to the pre 2021 ML era.)

f0e4c2f7 4y ago
AI seems to be the only thing you can still easily fundraise for these days, so I don't think that's too much of an issue. The consesus seems to be that there are too many investors and not enough AI startups to invest in (in SF at least). Saw a post the other day for an AI meetup where they said they already had too many investors on the waitlist and were no longer accepting more.
- ChatGTP 4y ago
  Honestly, is there much money to be made from these things long term? Like I know they will get “better”, but I still struggle generate something that isn’t kind of “weird”, today a horse with a harness melted into its face etc, and even if it generated picture perfect images, there is already a lot of images and art available for cheap, and a lot of competition will come along, but the thing with image generation is there’s nothing really special about it once’s it’s working to a decent enough level ? Will we just have ten services that generate similar stuff ?
  - f0e4c2f7 4y ago
    While there are lots of obstacles yes I suspect there will be quite a lot of money long term. From my perspective we're in the very early innings of another electricity like revolution. With images you get things like Hollywood being replaced[0] but the much bigger gains come from the seemingly endless list of tasks that these models can approach solving. I feel like I see a new groundbreaking application several times per week at this point[1]. With all that said I'm sure lots of startups will blow up and make no money too. While the overall wave seems very valuable to me, it's hard to predict what will be the Google and what will be the Webvan. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVT3WUa-48Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVT3WUa-48Y [1] https://twitter.com/DannyDriess/status/1632904675124035585 https://twitter.com/DannyDriess/status/1632904675124035585

O__________O 4y ago

Since the terms of the deal are not public, anyone have any idea how to estimate value of the deal. For example: how much Init ML raised prior to its acquisition and common comparable multiples; actually monthly active users and comparable price per user; etc.