The long read: As generative AI advances, it is easy to see it as yet another area where machines are taking over – but humans remain at the centre of AI art, just in ways we might not expect
As generative AI advances, it is easy to see it as yet another area where machines are taking over – but humans remain at the centre of AI art, just in ways we might not expect
Stable Diffusion generates four images in response to any prompt; I cheated slightly by just choosing my favourite to proceed. From the centre of the frame, a decently realistic tabby cat stared me down, green eyes glowing wide, mouth hanging open to display a salmon-pink tongue.
Clip Interrogator described this tableau as “a painting of a cat sitting on a toilet, PlayStation 2 gameplay still, in style of pop-art, by Ignacy Witkiewicz, the fool tarot, inspired by Phil Foglio, punkdrone, molecular gastronomy, app, bong, persona 5, text: roborock, destroy lonely, dog, ASCII, 1 8 2 4, tarot card design.” Destroy Lonely is not a command, I learned, but a trap artist from Atlanta. Roborock is a Roomba-like automated vacuum cleaner.
By 2015, algorithmic processes were able to form simple sentences or phrases to describe an image. Patterns of pixels identified as, say, “cat” or “cup” were matched with linguistic tags, which were then translated into automated image captions in natural language.
In contrast, ImageNet, a project initiated in 2006 by the computer scientist Fei-Fei Li, had the immodest aim of “map out the entire world of objects”. The dataset contains upward of 14m annotated images, organised into more than 100,000 “meaningful categories”. It also employed the labour of more than 25,000 workers via Mechanical Turk. While 100,000 is an astonishing number of categories, it’s extraordinarily small when you consider the visual complexity of the world.
Rather than fix the foundational issues in the datasets, these tools’ developers have attempted to obscure them through “debiasing”, or coding in safeguards to ensure diversity – which is how we get Gemini, Google’s recently rebranded genAI tool, producingAs text-to-image genAI tools grew increasingly sophisticated, the surrounding discourse grew increasingly alarmed: “Generative AI Is Changing Everything”; “Did Picture-Generating AI Just Make Artists Obsolete?”; “Can AI End Your Design...
The best path forward for labour protections might be to ensure that those already trained in crafting communicative, compelling images – illustrators, artists, photographers, photo editors – will be best at using these systems. genAI tools are built on natural language processing, the language that tends to result in the best outcomes reads as far from “natural”.
Australia Latest News, Australia Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
‘Mouthwatering’ wine a hidden gem inside new Penfolds collectionTucked away in the line-up of ravishing reds recently released in the 2024 Penfolds Collection is a mulberry coloured grenache that will not get the attention it deserves.
Read more »
Experts warn of hidden cost for almost a million Australians who are working more than one jobBut experts have flagged a hidden trap that could be eating into workers&x27; earnings.
Read more »
‘She was right and they were wrong’: the female astronomers hidden by science’s male eliteAs a new play examines the work of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, we celebrate the women whose crucial discoveries were ignored or suppressed
Read more »
Emotional abuse: The hidden crisis affecting thousands of Australian childrenEmotional abuse of Australian children is on the rise, becoming the most common form of child abuse. Despite this, new research shows that only half of Australians would report suspected child abuse to authorities.
Read more »
‘Every time the planes pass, my eyes burn’: the hidden cost of Costa Rican bananasPesticides banned in the EU are still used in the Central American country, affecting workers and ecosystems, all to meet the demand for ‘perfect’ fruit in the west
Read more »
Snake catcher's summer warning after finding huge python hidden inside outdoor barbecueAs summer approaches, Sunshine Coast snake catcher Stu said more Australians will come face-to-face with these scaly intruders.
Read more »