Reading List

The most recent articles from a list of feeds I subscribe to.

The Kitten Effect

One thing I've noticed with image-generating algorithms is that the more of something they have to put in an image, the worse it is.

I first noticed this with the kitten-generating variant of StyleGAN, which often does okay on one cat:

A portrait of a black and white cat, looking at the camera with a shocked or possibly sarcastic open-mouthed expression
alternative for shocked_pikachu.png

but is

Bonus: How closely can I look at a giraffe?

Reading tea leaves

DALL-E (and other text-to-image generators) will often add text to their images even when you don't ask for any. Ask for a picture of a Halifax Pier and it could end up covered in messy writing, variously legible versions of "Halifax" as if it was quietly

Bonus: More mysterious messages

Interview with a squirrel

Google's large language model, LaMDA, has recently been making headlines after a Google engineer (now on administrative leave), claimed to be swayed by an interview in which GPT-3 described the experience of being conscious. Almost everyone else who has used these large text-generating AIs, myself included, is entirely