How we built the Waifu Vending Machine(waifulabs.com)
waifulabs.com
How we built the Waifu Vending Machine
https://waifulabs.com/blog/ax
163 comments
I've played with it a few times. It seems like they have you choose features in the space in the order of base -> palette -> art style (loosely) -> pose, but have locked some emotion controlling vector to be happy. Probably a reasonable step for their audience.
I think a large majority of anime art have happy expressions, so it might not have been anything that they had to do.
Edit: "disgusted anime girl that looks at you like you're trash" is the theme of a recent book that got adapted into anime, so it's a bit of a fad currently. I thought that was worth mentioning.
Edit: "disgusted anime girl that looks at you like you're trash" is the theme of a recent book that got adapted into anime, so it's a bit of a fad currently. I thought that was worth mentioning.
[deleted]
Sounds like there needs to be more tsundere in the data set.
https://imgur.com/a/ZFrliiO Here's one that's somewhat "annoyed" but not quite "disgusted" hm.
Looks like you're the creator so as some feedback it'd be nice to see a simple outline of the steps with "inactive" styling, the step you're currently on as bold (maybe with an arrow in from of it?), and as you go through it the previous steps have a checkmark appear next to it (and possibly go back to "inactive" styling).
The steps could be something like this: (1) Select character, (2) Select colors, (3) Select outfit, (4) Select pose
The reason I suggest this is I was a little confused on what the options were, what my future options would be, and how many options are left.
The steps could be something like this: (1) Select character, (2) Select colors, (3) Select outfit, (4) Select pose
The reason I suggest this is I was a little confused on what the options were, what my future options would be, and how many options are left.
To clarify, I'm not the creator.
Sizigi Studios uses a dataset I put together (https://www.gwern.net/Danbooru2018) as their primary training corpus, AFAIK, and they were partially inspired by my application of GANs to anime art (as demonstrated on https://www.thiswaifudoesnotexist.net/ and see https://www.gwern.net/Faces for much more detail about every aspect of it), but I have never been involved with them and don't know much about what they've done other than what you can read in OP. It tickles me pink to see people following up on my anime GANs, though, especially as a startup! The Great Work goes on.
Sizigi Studios uses a dataset I put together (https://www.gwern.net/Danbooru2018) as their primary training corpus, AFAIK, and they were partially inspired by my application of GANs to anime art (as demonstrated on https://www.thiswaifudoesnotexist.net/ and see https://www.gwern.net/Faces for much more detail about every aspect of it), but I have never been involved with them and don't know much about what they've done other than what you can read in OP. It tickles me pink to see people following up on my anime GANs, though, especially as a startup! The Great Work goes on.
One of the creators here -- gathering the Danbooru data in one place was definitely a big help! Anime's been a pretty nice space (both personally and research-wise) especially due to the abundance of data online, and it's great that we no longer have to manually scrape image hosts (which I've spent many hours doing in the past @ https://github.com/kvfrans/deepcolor, https://canvasdrawer.autodeskresearch.com/ etc).
Gwern created a similar thing, but I believe it was a different team who made the Waifu Vending Machine. Not least because there are pictures, and Gwern is quite known for their pseudonymity.
Random semi-useful idea: use an SSH public key as input, giving a very memorable image for verification.
I could also see something like this having applications in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identicon generation.
I could also see something like this having applications in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identicon generation.
“Anime girls” look all the same to me.
There was a time where I didn’t listen to rock music; Pantera and Green Day would sound the same. Memorable is up to cultural fluency...
There was a time where I didn’t listen to rock music; Pantera and Green Day would sound the same. Memorable is up to cultural fluency...
It's like food connoisseurism. You get a sense for subtleties if you spend enough time with it.
xkcd #915 is titled “Connoisseur”:
https://www.xkcd.com/915/
https://www.xkcd.com/915/
Suprisingly such concept exists, there is a subreddit dedicated to finding art in modern photography.
http://www.reddit.com/r/AccidentalRenaissance/
that's exactly (in ascii, that is) the idea behind randomart, eg
The key fingerprint is:
SHA256:s6N0OwlTDKjDez98kZRwUGZbTYaQUArv+EYC6sigFwA ben@eshwil
The key's randomart image is:
+---[RSA 2048]----+
|E ..o=*o.+o |
|. .oo+oo... |
|.... o=.. |
| o+. o = |
|o .oo ooS. |
|* ...+o oo |
|oo.. o+o+o |
| . o+o+o |
| .o.. |
+----[SHA256]-----+
Why don't we combine those ideas and use ascii waifus?
(yes, that's a thing)
(yes, that's a thing)
How did you get a picture of my waifu!?
The one thing I've always wanted from identicons is for the system to use a mixed generator composed of at least 20 different algorithms, that all produce results that are completely different-in-kind (like abstract shapes vs. cartoon monsters vs. anime girls vs. swatched spirographs vs. pixel cities vs. ...), such that it's unlikely that any two anonymous users in a smaller conversation will end up with identicons that you have to inspect to differentiate. (E.g. hopefully, if there are two users with identicons of the same style, then they would have very different base colors, which is impossible if all the identicons are of the same style.)
You can just train a conditional GAN on a variety of datasets, such as BigGAN.
https://medium.com/syncedreview/biggan-a-new-state-of-the-ar...
https://medium.com/syncedreview/biggan-a-new-state-of-the-ar...
I'm not sure how you're shipping your posters, but here's a tip:
When shipping posters, use triangle tubes, not circular tubes, it saves you money.
[0] https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6549769...
When shipping posters, use triangle tubes, not circular tubes, it saves you money.
[0] https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6549769...
I suggest using the money saved to include some chocolate, so people aren't disappointed.
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I'm actually really surprised no one did this sooner. I also wish they had posted revenue figures for the two days.
To other people doing this in the future: bring (or order) a fat battery pack with an AC outlet for $100 so you don't have to keep swapping laptops and can use a mobile hotspot all day.
To other people doing this in the future: bring (or order) a fat battery pack with an AC outlet for $100 so you don't have to keep swapping laptops and can use a mobile hotspot all day.
It looks like they did have these. In one of their pictures there was a stack of Anker PowerHouse power banks/battery packs.
Yeah the two batteries we lugged down to AX ended up saving the day a couple of times!
If you can find a car charger for your laptop you will get much longer battery life as you don't have to do DC AC DC
I would love to replicate this. It looks like the dataset is open source. https://www.gwern.net/Danbooru2018
I don't have a sense for hardware requirements though. Does anyone have a good idea of how much time and money it would take to train such a model?
I don't have a sense for hardware requirements though. Does anyone have a good idea of how much time and money it would take to train such a model?
I'm glad you asked: https://www.gwern.net/Faces#compute Figure a few GPU-weeks and a few hundred dollars if you want to go from scratch.
I saw the section about not training from scratch (via transfer learning) in https://www.gwern.net/Faces#transfer-learning. The Holo example is really impressive!
How expensive is it in terms of labelled data and compute? Do you know if anyone tried this for just ahegao faces?
How expensive is it in terms of labelled data and compute? Do you know if anyone tried this for just ahegao faces?
> How expensive is it in terms of labelled data and compute?
All the stuff you see in that page (except the BigGAN ones) is unconditional, no labels. You just dump the images in and it figures it out. StyleGAN does support labels via one-hot embedding as I understand it, but I don't know how to use it so none of my experiments use it. A few people have mentioned or used it, but there's no good documentation about how to make it work, so... For unconditional samples, it depends on how many you have and how different they are. You can see in the various examples transfer learning with a few hundred to a few thousand (with and without data augmentation).
> Do you know if anyone tried this for just ahegao faces?
It's funny you ask that because I was corresponding with an anonymous who was using it for just that (and ball gags). He'd run into some issues with the encoder/editing functionality and wanted advice, but the regular transfer learning worked fine. He'd compiled a small dataset of a few hundred to a few thousand examples on his own, and it worked disturbingly well: sufficiently so I didn't want to write it up. (I try to keep my site SFW.)
All the stuff you see in that page (except the BigGAN ones) is unconditional, no labels. You just dump the images in and it figures it out. StyleGAN does support labels via one-hot embedding as I understand it, but I don't know how to use it so none of my experiments use it. A few people have mentioned or used it, but there's no good documentation about how to make it work, so... For unconditional samples, it depends on how many you have and how different they are. You can see in the various examples transfer learning with a few hundred to a few thousand (with and without data augmentation).
> Do you know if anyone tried this for just ahegao faces?
It's funny you ask that because I was corresponding with an anonymous who was using it for just that (and ball gags). He'd run into some issues with the encoder/editing functionality and wanted advice, but the regular transfer learning worked fine. He'd compiled a small dataset of a few hundred to a few thousand examples on his own, and it worked disturbingly well: sufficiently so I didn't want to write it up. (I try to keep my site SFW.)
Thanks! I was just in the process of digging through your stuff.
One of the creators here, the team at Sizigi and I are glad to answer any questions!
Great work!
Do you have any thoughts to share on the future of this area? Anything specific with this project, future projects you might work on, or just the idea of profiting from AI-generated art to begin with?
Nothing specific so far. We did this because we thought it would be very cool :)
All that drawing and character design practice for nothing I guess.
Don't forget that this would not have been possible if it weren't for the human creation of art. Machines cannot really think, but they can leverage and amplify.
These things are pretty damn impressive, but I would guess like self driving cars, we’re pretty far away from them displacing humans at the same task. It does seem like technology in this vein could be used to help the creative process, though on that note it’s only as good as its data set, which is of course something a human has to handle for now.
Even if robots replace human illustration in short order, it will probably never stop being a fun hobby, and I imagine neural networks were bound to be at least involved in the process at some point. People still draw on paper even though it’s hard to argue against the benefits of modern digital drawing.
Even if robots replace human illustration in short order, it will probably never stop being a fun hobby, and I imagine neural networks were bound to be at least involved in the process at some point. People still draw on paper even though it’s hard to argue against the benefits of modern digital drawing.
>I would guess like self driving cars, we’re pretty far away from them displacing humans at the same task
That does NOT make me happy. Self-driving cars are just around the corner!
That does NOT make me happy. Self-driving cars are just around the corner!
From what I've seen the end result contains a lot of artifacts. If I were in the market for a poster I'd still want a real artist to use the generated version as a rough sketch and redraw it properly.
PSA: I get a horrific 5 GB< memory leak immediately upon opening the tool's page.
Neat but lacks variety(all same pose and template) and too little steps to select.
Resolution of final image is too low.
I think same thing could be done with human images, if you can make it 7-10 selection steps(to pinpoint more fine features).
Reminds me of the Deep Learning work from StyleGAN.
https://twitter.com/_Ryobot/status/1096565388165300225
https://twitter.com/_Ryobot/status/1096565388165300225
One of the inspirations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20511824
Neato. What are the copyright implications of commercializing this though?
Should be safe, modulo issues about software patents: https://www.gwern.net/Faces#faq
Lobster _is_ the neue Comic Sans... although maybe it’s just carrying over the tongue in cheek cheese further.
The dataset this is built from (https://www.gwern.net/Danbooru2018) is, simply put, copyright-infringing on a gross scale. The vast majority of the images uploaded to 'boorus' completely lack a compatible license or the artist's express consent. The redistribution via torrent of 2.5 TB of some 3 million images only compounds this problem. None of this is ameliorated by the $20 'generosity' of the dataset creator.
As a result, every single artist whose work was included in that dataset has a clear, meaningful claim that each and every 'waifu' sold ($20, if customized, or $5 if random) by Sizigi Studios is an infringing derivative work. Coupled with at least one of the project authors' ready admissions -- in this very comment section -- of scraping image sites himself, I would say that this team is playing with fire. Even in the case that an algorithm's output is somehow found to be 'creative' rather than mechanistic, AND this specific application is found to be in all cases substantially transformative, there's STILL the original massive 2.5 TB of copyright infringement up front to deal with.
All an enterprising lawyer would need to begin is to search the BigQuery metadata for the 'artist' and 'copyright' tags on these images. Note of course that the 'copyright' tag is widely misused on boorus and similar image repositories to refer to the inspiring franchise; 'trademark' would be much more accurate descriptor.
EDIT: I do not mean to suggest that litigation from the use of the dataset in this ML (as opposed to the original, clearly infringing, download & redistribution) would in any way be an easy, one-sided case --- only that this scenario would represent nearly the worst possible test case imaginable for determining the future legality of ML, short of directly antagonizing the RIAA or MPAA.
As a result, every single artist whose work was included in that dataset has a clear, meaningful claim that each and every 'waifu' sold ($20, if customized, or $5 if random) by Sizigi Studios is an infringing derivative work. Coupled with at least one of the project authors' ready admissions -- in this very comment section -- of scraping image sites himself, I would say that this team is playing with fire. Even in the case that an algorithm's output is somehow found to be 'creative' rather than mechanistic, AND this specific application is found to be in all cases substantially transformative, there's STILL the original massive 2.5 TB of copyright infringement up front to deal with.
All an enterprising lawyer would need to begin is to search the BigQuery metadata for the 'artist' and 'copyright' tags on these images. Note of course that the 'copyright' tag is widely misused on boorus and similar image repositories to refer to the inspiring franchise; 'trademark' would be much more accurate descriptor.
EDIT: I do not mean to suggest that litigation from the use of the dataset in this ML (as opposed to the original, clearly infringing, download & redistribution) would in any way be an easy, one-sided case --- only that this scenario would represent nearly the worst possible test case imaginable for determining the future legality of ML, short of directly antagonizing the RIAA or MPAA.
I think it's not as clear as you claim and more like a big gray area, like a lot of fan art out there. Some images in the dataset themselves might be infringing on some other publisher's rights. On the other hand some artists knowingly submit their original art to the image boards.
Where exactly is the point between a derivative work and an original work that was inspired by something? A lot of fan art I see clearly depicts a character from some franchise in a style that is close to the original, but say, in a new pose or setting. Is that copyright infringement? Trademark infringement? What if it's an original character in the exact style from the franchise?
Some artists sell this kind of art as their own at conventions and will aggressively try to remove reposts on the web. On the other extreme, I've seen other artists tag any fan art remotely connected with some franchise with "copyright by <franchise owner>" and denounce any rights to their work.
Where exactly is the point between a derivative work and an original work that was inspired by something? A lot of fan art I see clearly depicts a character from some franchise in a style that is close to the original, but say, in a new pose or setting. Is that copyright infringement? Trademark infringement? What if it's an original character in the exact style from the franchise?
Some artists sell this kind of art as their own at conventions and will aggressively try to remove reposts on the web. On the other extreme, I've seen other artists tag any fan art remotely connected with some franchise with "copyright by <franchise owner>" and denounce any rights to their work.
The ImageNet dataset, which is probably the most commonly used dataset (besides MNIST), is also "copyright-infringement on a gross scale". http://image-net.org/about-overview
Interesting. How would you respond to an argument that the output of a ML model is transformative / fair use? Would your argument apply to this specific application, or to ML in general?
Obviously the question of whether an ML model is adequately transformative is an unanswered one, at least as far as I'm aware, in any jurisdiction.
However, in this specific case, I would expect most courts to place heavy weight on the clear, initial massive-scale infringment from the dataset alone to conclude that no good-faith effort (or, apparently, any effort at all) was made to avoid trampling these artists' rights. Such 'dirty hands' would potentially discredit any attempt to claim original creative expression, rather than commercialism, motivated the creation of this ML model.
This represent very nearly the worst possible case to serve as a potential test case for the legality of ML techniques.
Other datasets, like the Open Images Dataset (https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.00982) explicitly recognize and address this concern in their curation of included images.
However, in this specific case, I would expect most courts to place heavy weight on the clear, initial massive-scale infringment from the dataset alone to conclude that no good-faith effort (or, apparently, any effort at all) was made to avoid trampling these artists' rights. Such 'dirty hands' would potentially discredit any attempt to claim original creative expression, rather than commercialism, motivated the creation of this ML model.
This represent very nearly the worst possible case to serve as a potential test case for the legality of ML techniques.
Other datasets, like the Open Images Dataset (https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.00982) explicitly recognize and address this concern in their curation of included images.
It's a standard part of artist training to copy paintings by hand, infringing copyright. Never to the best of my knowledge has this been used to argue that a picture with no visible elements of another infringes. If these infringe, where is the similarity?
True, and an interesting philosophical question.
However, it is not a standard part of artist training to obtain and redistribute, without license, the (in this case millions) of paintings they studied.
> Never to the best of my knowledge has this been used to argue that a picture with no visible elements of another infringes.
One only needs to look as far back as 2013, in Williams v. Bridgeport Music, to find such a thing not merely argued, but successfully litigated. In this case, the estate of Marvin Gaye alleged that Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" copied the 'feel' and 'sound' of "Got to Give It Up" despite containing no samples or even an identical chord progression.
Perhaps more surprising to you will be the fact that the court found in favor of Gaye's estate, i.e. that "Blurred Lines" was infringing!
A not-insubstantial factor in reaching this decision was, as I alluded to above, the attitude of the defendant regarding the infringement. Thicke testified "No" when asked if he considered himself an honest person, and admitted that "Got to Give It Up" was a direct inspiration for the song.
It would be difficult to argue that the data used to create your ML was anything BUT its explicit inspiration, and as I've mentioned in other posts, this is compounded by the fact that the acquiring the initial dataset is itself a separate and very clear-cut case of copyright infringement.
In the interest of good discourse, do note that many legal scholars and industry experts were, admittedly, shocked by the decision and decry it as fundamentally mistaken. Nevertheless it is now certainly precedential caselaw.
However, it is not a standard part of artist training to obtain and redistribute, without license, the (in this case millions) of paintings they studied.
> Never to the best of my knowledge has this been used to argue that a picture with no visible elements of another infringes.
One only needs to look as far back as 2013, in Williams v. Bridgeport Music, to find such a thing not merely argued, but successfully litigated. In this case, the estate of Marvin Gaye alleged that Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" copied the 'feel' and 'sound' of "Got to Give It Up" despite containing no samples or even an identical chord progression.
Perhaps more surprising to you will be the fact that the court found in favor of Gaye's estate, i.e. that "Blurred Lines" was infringing!
A not-insubstantial factor in reaching this decision was, as I alluded to above, the attitude of the defendant regarding the infringement. Thicke testified "No" when asked if he considered himself an honest person, and admitted that "Got to Give It Up" was a direct inspiration for the song.
It would be difficult to argue that the data used to create your ML was anything BUT its explicit inspiration, and as I've mentioned in other posts, this is compounded by the fact that the acquiring the initial dataset is itself a separate and very clear-cut case of copyright infringement.
In the interest of good discourse, do note that many legal scholars and industry experts were, admittedly, shocked by the decision and decry it as fundamentally mistaken. Nevertheless it is now certainly precedential caselaw.
> If these infringe, where is the similarity?
It would be quite interesting to compare the generated images with the dataset using a tineye-style image matcher. I wouldn't be surprised if large segments of the generated pictures are outright identical to some image from the dataset.
It would be quite interesting to compare the generated images with the dataset using a tineye-style image matcher. I wouldn't be surprised if large segments of the generated pictures are outright identical to some image from the dataset.
> All an enterprising lawyer would need to begin is to search the BigQuery metadata for the 'artist' and 'copyright' tags on these images.
Maybe, but they probably won't right? Like, if you had to bet money on if anyone is going to sue these guys over the next couple years, which side would you bet on?
I'd bet on "No". The reality is that these people probably made some X0,000 dollars on this, and nobody is going to bother to pay lawyers a bunch of money to go after something, that only kinda sorta looks like infringement to machine learning experts who are squinting really hard, all in order to claim their 1/3millionth percentage claim on it.
I don't see anybody wasting their time and money to go after a machine learning waifu vending machine that is hosted at a couple anime conventions.
Maybe, but they probably won't right? Like, if you had to bet money on if anyone is going to sue these guys over the next couple years, which side would you bet on?
I'd bet on "No". The reality is that these people probably made some X0,000 dollars on this, and nobody is going to bother to pay lawyers a bunch of money to go after something, that only kinda sorta looks like infringement to machine learning experts who are squinting really hard, all in order to claim their 1/3millionth percentage claim on it.
I don't see anybody wasting their time and money to go after a machine learning waifu vending machine that is hosted at a couple anime conventions.
Even in the case that an algorithm's output is somehow found to be 'creative' rather than mechanistic, AND this specific application is found to be in all cases substantially transformative, there's STILL the original massive 2.5 TB of copyright infringement up front to deal with.
You're almost making the argument that everyone who has ever read a pirated book or other work (I know plenty of people who started their whole career that way...) and then uses that knowledge is guilty, which is just a perfect example of how ridiculously insane copyright law is.
"Everything is a derivative work."
"Stand on the shoulders of giants."
You're almost making the argument that everyone who has ever read a pirated book or other work (I know plenty of people who started their whole career that way...) and then uses that knowledge is guilty, which is just a perfect example of how ridiculously insane copyright law is.
"Everything is a derivative work."
"Stand on the shoulders of giants."
The claim also appears to extend to everyone who has in their life ever read a library book.
The anime art industry in Japan is based on a copyright-deténte system where new artists publish copyright violating fanart at real life events like Comic Market, which is a good enough business that it supports them until they become the next generation of professional artists.
Of course, it helps that some series like Touhou have explicit copyright licenses allowing this. But basically everything's OK unless you try to make porn for a Nintendo game.
Of course, it helps that some series like Touhou have explicit copyright licenses allowing this. But basically everything's OK unless you try to make porn for a Nintendo game.
I think this is a phenomenally interesting point of view.
It is true that 'boorus' do not bother with artist consent, and I think by and large the sentiment from Japanese artists has been fairly negative, if a bit muted (perhaps this is a bit of a cultural thing?) Despite that, the dynamic between boorus and content creators has always been complicated.
Boorus have some positives even for artists. For one thing, they organize images pretty extensively; it is not abnormal to see a booru post with 50 to 100 tags, and it's probably fairly uncommon to see less than 10 tags - so they're great for searching for images. Because of that, they are an excellent place to search for inspiration or references, and I definitely know folks that do this. They also act as content aggregates, which does help people discover content and artists, especially combined with tags. Boorus do tend to comply with "do not post" requests, though that obviously does not mean artists are then implicitly consenting to their work being posted or used.
But of course, the boorus themselves are not charities. Boorus tend to run ads or even accept direct payment from users in exchange for features. Personally, I do find this unethical, and I highly recommend you do not browse a booru without an adblocker, not even because of ethical concerns but due to the fact that many of them have pretty nasty advertising (Also, be aware that many boorus, like Gelbooru for example, are not particularly shameful about explicit content, and neither are their ads.)
I was involved in a small scale booru years ago in my youth, for a particular interest. It's funny, I was so wrapped up in the utility of organizing and categorizing images that I had not even considered the issue of artist consent or copyright (I was not making any money, in my case, at the very least.) Ultimately, an artist complained that their work was repeatedly posted without proper links, something we did our best to discourage, and I shut the whole thing down in short order, for better or worse.
Like many things on the internet, boorus would not be nearly as useful without their flagrant disregard for copyright. It's not just booru owners in this debate, though - some online artists take a view that copying and sharing online is both inevitable and the point, while others, probably moreso these days due to an increase in bad actors, take a hardline stance against copyright infringement. The law clearly and plainly sides with the latter, and I think I do too. Before sites like Pixiv existed, there were very few resources for finding Japanese illustrations in one place, much of it scattered around in fc2 blogs and Geocities sites (Yes, even until pretty recently! Geocities Japan outlived many other Geocities regions.) Nowadays, there's not nearly as bad of a discovery problem with Japanese art, and the boorus feel more parasitic than they once did.
(Aside: I think many software engineers are used to being very technical about copyright, even when they do not understand the details correctly. Most artists I know do not dabble much into the details of copyright or licensing, and may even have some difficulties grasping the implications of say, Creative Commons terms. It's important to recognize that not everyone has the same point of view and things that seem obvious to us may not even make sense to others.)
Of course, though, that a booru is basically massive copyright infringement is one thing. Now we're talking about neural networks built from them. And damn, that is complicated, and probably breaking new ground. I'm sure people with strong opinions will claim that it is very black and white, but I can't see this as anything less than a dilemma. I agree the model clearly constitutes copyright infringement if redistributed, but the results... that seems deeply complicated.
On one hand, for all of their impressive strides as of late, current neural network algorithms are not really that impressive in their creativity. It's clear they are very heavily influenced by the data sets. That said, though... at the end of the day, our brains are also 'neural nets.' If we design a sufficiently advanced neural net and feed it a handful of pictures from Danbooru, and it is able to spit out similar but clearly distinct art, how is that any more copyright infringement than a human artist that draws inspiration from the same images?
I think people predicted that the copyright situation would get complicated when DeepDream showed up, but it's nothing compared to the calamity that could occur as a result of this kind of data set.
It is true that 'boorus' do not bother with artist consent, and I think by and large the sentiment from Japanese artists has been fairly negative, if a bit muted (perhaps this is a bit of a cultural thing?) Despite that, the dynamic between boorus and content creators has always been complicated.
Boorus have some positives even for artists. For one thing, they organize images pretty extensively; it is not abnormal to see a booru post with 50 to 100 tags, and it's probably fairly uncommon to see less than 10 tags - so they're great for searching for images. Because of that, they are an excellent place to search for inspiration or references, and I definitely know folks that do this. They also act as content aggregates, which does help people discover content and artists, especially combined with tags. Boorus do tend to comply with "do not post" requests, though that obviously does not mean artists are then implicitly consenting to their work being posted or used.
But of course, the boorus themselves are not charities. Boorus tend to run ads or even accept direct payment from users in exchange for features. Personally, I do find this unethical, and I highly recommend you do not browse a booru without an adblocker, not even because of ethical concerns but due to the fact that many of them have pretty nasty advertising (Also, be aware that many boorus, like Gelbooru for example, are not particularly shameful about explicit content, and neither are their ads.)
I was involved in a small scale booru years ago in my youth, for a particular interest. It's funny, I was so wrapped up in the utility of organizing and categorizing images that I had not even considered the issue of artist consent or copyright (I was not making any money, in my case, at the very least.) Ultimately, an artist complained that their work was repeatedly posted without proper links, something we did our best to discourage, and I shut the whole thing down in short order, for better or worse.
Like many things on the internet, boorus would not be nearly as useful without their flagrant disregard for copyright. It's not just booru owners in this debate, though - some online artists take a view that copying and sharing online is both inevitable and the point, while others, probably moreso these days due to an increase in bad actors, take a hardline stance against copyright infringement. The law clearly and plainly sides with the latter, and I think I do too. Before sites like Pixiv existed, there were very few resources for finding Japanese illustrations in one place, much of it scattered around in fc2 blogs and Geocities sites (Yes, even until pretty recently! Geocities Japan outlived many other Geocities regions.) Nowadays, there's not nearly as bad of a discovery problem with Japanese art, and the boorus feel more parasitic than they once did.
(Aside: I think many software engineers are used to being very technical about copyright, even when they do not understand the details correctly. Most artists I know do not dabble much into the details of copyright or licensing, and may even have some difficulties grasping the implications of say, Creative Commons terms. It's important to recognize that not everyone has the same point of view and things that seem obvious to us may not even make sense to others.)
Of course, though, that a booru is basically massive copyright infringement is one thing. Now we're talking about neural networks built from them. And damn, that is complicated, and probably breaking new ground. I'm sure people with strong opinions will claim that it is very black and white, but I can't see this as anything less than a dilemma. I agree the model clearly constitutes copyright infringement if redistributed, but the results... that seems deeply complicated.
On one hand, for all of their impressive strides as of late, current neural network algorithms are not really that impressive in their creativity. It's clear they are very heavily influenced by the data sets. That said, though... at the end of the day, our brains are also 'neural nets.' If we design a sufficiently advanced neural net and feed it a handful of pictures from Danbooru, and it is able to spit out similar but clearly distinct art, how is that any more copyright infringement than a human artist that draws inspiration from the same images?
I think people predicted that the copyright situation would get complicated when DeepDream showed up, but it's nothing compared to the calamity that could occur as a result of this kind of data set.
FWIW Danbooru complies with artists requests to remove all of their work.
Such compliance may protect Danbooru itself from some specific causes of action, particularly if Danbooru is able to convince the court that they were truly innocuous middlemen and that the site itself was not designed from the ground up to facilitate such infringement. Such a task would be an uphill battle in most jurisdictions subject to the Hague Convention.
However, all of that is irrelevant when the concerns are the distribution of the site's contents by torrent, or the use of those copyrighted images in making derivative works. In both cases the party in question is now first-party to the concern, either the distribution or the derivation.
However, all of that is irrelevant when the concerns are the distribution of the site's contents by torrent, or the use of those copyrighted images in making derivative works. In both cases the party in question is now first-party to the concern, either the distribution or the derivation.
The model they use is simply a large matrix of numbers. What copyright infringement is there?
Can one make a one-to-one correspondence of such numbers to a copyrighted work of art?
The way these types of networks function results in the generation of wholly unique, never before seen images. I guarantee you will never find a single copyrighted work of art that is generated by a model like this.
It seems then that the closest analog is the network is a derived work then.
Arguably it's a derived work in the same way that a person developing a taste for art after looking at thousands of images and then going and painting their own original creation is.
To be fair... that is also an apt description of a 2D image.
Sure, but in the case of the copyrighted work, we're talking about a specific combination and sequence of numbers which represent that 2-D image. The numbers here representing the weights that make up the model have nothing to do with those.
Yes, I agree that there is an argument to be made here, just not on the basis that the model is 'just a matrix of numbers.' Of course, when we're talking about this many weights, one must wonder exactly how much of the input images is actually pretty much directly encoded in the resulting network.
..ick
The tech is interesting, but the concept and naming is pretty creepy. Waifu, from "wife", is anime slang for female cartoon characters that people get romantically attracted to.
https://www.dictionary.com/e/fictional-characters/waifu/
https://www.dictionary.com/e/fictional-characters/waifu/
Everyone knows that. It's also literally the point of the machine.
I guess it's creepy in a similar way as people shooting other people virtually (in shooter video games), though a making a waifu "vending machine" adds another angle of objectification to it.
I don't think the point is to objectify. I think it's the opposite. It's turning objects into something that satisfies yearnings for human company, sometimes replacing it and sometimes in addition to it. It's like listening to music often because you want to hear human voices. And one big name, Hatsune Miku, is a virtual pop star with a synthesized voice, which is based on female human voices, even though it isn't based on a single human voice.
As globalization moves on there are more and more people without romantic partners and/or close friends nearby and they'll use their imagination to fulfill desires they're missing.
As globalization moves on there are more and more people without romantic partners and/or close friends nearby and they'll use their imagination to fulfill desires they're missing.
It really is just fun. I don't know why people insist in assuming malice.
Doesn't have to have been made with any malice to still be creepy.
Because yea, it's creepy.
Because yea, it's creepy.
Or, to think of that another way, something doesn't have to be inherently creepy for someone to be creeped out by that thing. Sometimes disgust is a fact about the person who's disgusted, rather than a fact about the world.
Would it still have been creepy if it was called "Generative Portraits of Anime Girls" instead of "Waifu"? I bet people react just to the name.
Stop discrimination against creepy people!
Why don't you be more specific? If you get down to the guts of everything... It's all "creepy".
[deleted]
Many things appear "creepy" but that isn't any reason to think they're bad. In fact, creepiness can be good. Would you say a horror movie has done a good job if it failed to creep you out?
Are you sure that you aren't just using "creepy" to shut down non-traditional forms of private sexuality?
Are you sure that you aren't just using "creepy" to shut down non-traditional forms of private sexuality?
[deleted]
Miku is absolutely based on one and only one person: Fujita Saki. Though the two don't sound like each other.
Also, just cause you find it creepy doesn't mean it's reciprocated by everyone else in the world. Besides, the usage in that booth was very tongue in cheek.
Also, just cause you find it creepy doesn't mean it's reciprocated by everyone else in the world. Besides, the usage in that booth was very tongue in cheek.
The creepy thing is funny because nerds fawning over stylized drawings is just about the most innocuous thing there is
Until things like this happen:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Miyazaki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Miyazaki
Ah, yes, surely this man killed and raped little girls because he was influenced by cartoons, and not because he was born with a deformity into one of the most collectivist societies on earth and then ostracized for his entire life. We're so lucky that sexually normative people never rape or kill anyone.
Sarcasm aside, this is one of the many, many examples of choosing a scapegoat to frame an entire sexuality, race, or any group of people with a common interest as evil while completely ignoring any and all context. People are not animals and possess some degree of responsibility and the ability to tell reality from fiction. Unless someone presents some hard evidence that stylized drawings lead to actual attacks against real children (and to my knowledge, this simply is not true; in fact, it's easy to argue the opposite) we need to stop with this puritan outrage like we stopped blaming computer games for any and all violent crime back in the late 90s.
Sarcasm aside, this is one of the many, many examples of choosing a scapegoat to frame an entire sexuality, race, or any group of people with a common interest as evil while completely ignoring any and all context. People are not animals and possess some degree of responsibility and the ability to tell reality from fiction. Unless someone presents some hard evidence that stylized drawings lead to actual attacks against real children (and to my knowledge, this simply is not true; in fact, it's easy to argue the opposite) we need to stop with this puritan outrage like we stopped blaming computer games for any and all violent crime back in the late 90s.
Yes, it's a textbook example of moral panic and the WP article says so. I was primarily pointing out that to most people, especially in Japan, the image of "nerds fawning over stylized drawings" sounds about as innocuous as "Catholic priests fawning over little choir boys".
[deleted]
I've confirmed that what you say is accurate on Wikipedia, though I'd take your word from it because your username starts with "hatsune". I think this might be the first time I've been beetlejuiced on HN...
Hehe, I know quite a bit about her.
[deleted]
It should be in a similar way, but in reality people lose their minds when the topic is sexual.
Unless it is middle aged ladies drooling over male characters from Jane Austen dramatisations.
Yup, and people like Bianca Devins get killed in the fallout.
It isn’t really offensive, it’s just 4chanish, which will appeal to certain people and not others.
"It isn’t really offensive, it’s just 4chanish" - those things go hand-in-hand...a lot.
A bit of real world experience might highlight what is really offensive and garish and gruesome in the world from the masochistic pleasure of 4chan's "shocking" rhetoric.
The term waifu is way bigger than 4chan.
That’s why I said 4chanish.
Fair enough. Worth mentioning it's from a time when 4chan had a completely different userbase (number of users on 4chan doubled during gamergate alone).
Yeah...technically interesting, creepy AF.
Frankly, I refuse to believe so many people on HN have the kind of scruples about or lack of exposure to this part of AmerOtaku culture. As such, I believe many of the comments are simply 2nd-degree trolling.
Also, the post title is misspelled. It's "building", not "builing".
Also, the post title is misspelled. It's "building", not "builing".
Do we visit the same website?... Cause it seems to me like this place is full of stuffy, smug moralizing about what other people do, at least as much as any other forum. We just use bigger words than most forums. I'm not surprised at all that there are people ignorant of the culture but simultaneously convinced they don't like it.
I think I refused to believe it too until reddit, a San Francisco company, started banning people for posting fictional high school anime characters in bikinis (not even nudes).
I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make here. But it sounds like you're trying to say the sexual objectification of children is okay, as long as they are fictional children with a tiny amount of body covering. Is that what you meant, or did you mean something else?
What do we mean by "okay"? How do we differentiate virtual murder (for example) from virtual pedophilia in a sufficiently rigorous way? You can say that rigor isn't required beacuse Reddit can make whatever choices they like, but it's not at all clear that the necessary connection for sexual objectification of children is made when these images are posted - that presupposes that the viewer sees the image and real children in the same light, which current evidence gathered of Japanese fan communities does not support (see Galbraith and McLelland's work on this). This is why researchers in the field are sometimes skeptical about calling this material "child pornography".
Morally, one can differentiate between virtual murder and virtual pedophilia and condemn virtual pedophilia while consistently enjoying games and other media depicting murder - but as Gary Young pointed out in his piece on the Gamer's Dilemma, it requires us to accept moral relativism.
Morally, one can differentiate between virtual murder and virtual pedophilia and condemn virtual pedophilia while consistently enjoying games and other media depicting murder - but as Gary Young pointed out in his piece on the Gamer's Dilemma, it requires us to accept moral relativism.
Walk up to the station, and you'll be greeted with a quick array of girls. After each step, the booth narrows your choices -- eventually leading to a final screen, where you can "adopt" the girl on the spot.
Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.
Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.
The world isn't going to end because of war or famine or anything like that, but because humans will be too infatuated with their artificial partners to bother reproducing.
Not even an artificial problem: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/27/japan-shrinkin...
I want to point out that the linked article is hyperbolic (as most “Japanese people aren’t having kids/sex/etc.” articles are), and its title is outright misleading.
It claims that Japan has the lowest birth rate ever. And while it may have the lowest number of births, that is to be expected in any country with a birth rate below replacement - I.e basically the entire developed world.
In fact, as opposed to the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Japan’s fertility rate has actually been increasing for some years now. See details here: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SPDYNTFRTINJPN
I really wish this meme would die, but it obviously drives clicks so people keep publishing it.
It claims that Japan has the lowest birth rate ever. And while it may have the lowest number of births, that is to be expected in any country with a birth rate below replacement - I.e basically the entire developed world.
In fact, as opposed to the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Japan’s fertility rate has actually been increasing for some years now. See details here: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SPDYNTFRTINJPN
I really wish this meme would die, but it obviously drives clicks so people keep publishing it.
Thanks for this.
It seems to have started going up in 2005. That's really interesting and unexpected. Has anyone proposed an explanation? I know they've been trying to encourage people to form families for a while. Maybe some of their measures have worked?
It seems to have started going up in 2005. That's really interesting and unexpected. Has anyone proposed an explanation? I know they've been trying to encourage people to form families for a while. Maybe some of their measures have worked?
These articles never mention it, but I do think waifu culture contributes to the issue.
I personally never looked for a partner because I'd rather spend more time watching anime.
I personally never looked for a partner because I'd rather spend more time watching anime.
I'm single and 40 and I have no interest in dating because I would 100x rather be in my workshop building keyboards than out meeting people.
Honestly, I feel kinda guilty about it. Shouldn't the people who care so much about their craft that they forgo relationships be precisely the kind that we'd want to preserve the genes of?
evolution hasn't caught up with what are actually good traits in this current society
I think about this a lot. It seems that there must be some benefit to society from having certain members contribute but not reproduce. Obviously, from a purely darwinistic point of view, you would think that biological organisms that don't want to reproduce would have been bred out of the gene pool a long time ago. However, to answer your question, your parents had a child that cares intensely about their craft, so maybe it doesn't matter in the long run.
That's the evo argument for the "gay uncle" (et al) as a noncompetitive but good to have around person. I'm not sure it's true, but it's a tale as old as at least the 90's.
Oh the evolutionary answer is easy. If your parents have a gene that can make you behave in a way that reduces the chance of you reproducing, but changes your behavior in such a way that increases the chance of your kin surviving, then that gene is in good position to spread in the population through your siblings.
Of course that doesn't work so well when the average fertility rate is less than 2 children per couple.
Also, the same gene can sometimes have a positive and negative effect on your chances of reproducing at the same time. For instance, suppose there's a gene that makes you want to work out instead of have sex. That might just increase your chances more than decrease in an environment where you need strength to survive (or that partners are attracted to that).
Of course that doesn't work so well when the average fertility rate is less than 2 children per couple.
Also, the same gene can sometimes have a positive and negative effect on your chances of reproducing at the same time. For instance, suppose there's a gene that makes you want to work out instead of have sex. That might just increase your chances more than decrease in an environment where you need strength to survive (or that partners are attracted to that).
Do genes really matter all that much? Speaking as a typical armchair expert here. Judging from a few of the latest pop-sci books on heredity, I was under the impression that culture and nurture play a much greater role: high quality medicine, food rich in nutrients, good education available to all.
There's an interesting anecdote to support it. When the Soviet Union (with all its faults) was established, it has provided education to much broader masses of the population than ever before. You know how it turned out? When you read the biographies of the many of the brightest academics of the USSR, many of them are descendants of a typical peasant family. Some of their parents weren't able to read or write, had a lot of children, etc. This "genetic handicap" didn't stop them from getting a degree and becoming bright scientists.
There's an interesting anecdote to support it. When the Soviet Union (with all its faults) was established, it has provided education to much broader masses of the population than ever before. You know how it turned out? When you read the biographies of the many of the brightest academics of the USSR, many of them are descendants of a typical peasant family. Some of their parents weren't able to read or write, had a lot of children, etc. This "genetic handicap" didn't stop them from getting a degree and becoming bright scientists.
How much genes matter vs culture depends on the variance of each of those factors in the sampled population. You aren't going to win a Nobel prize if you are a dog, no matter how top-quality your education. You aren't going to win a Nobel prize if you are a feral child, no matter how high your IQ is. That's how much both culture and genetics matter.
> Do genes really matter all that much?
Yes.
> Judging from a few of the latest pop-sci books
That's not really much better than “judging from my newspaper horoscope”.
> I was under the impression that culture and nurture play a much greater role: high quality medicine, food rich in nutrients, good education available to all.
Those play a huge role in whether genetic potential will be reached, genetics play a huge role in the actual outcome given similar environment.
> When you read the biographies of the many of the brightest academics of the USSR, many of them are descendants of a typical peasant family. Some of their parents weren't able to read or write, had a lot of children, etc. This "genetic handicap"
You describe an socioeconomic handicap, not a genetic one, so it doesn't really say anything about the effects of genetics.
Yes.
> Judging from a few of the latest pop-sci books
That's not really much better than “judging from my newspaper horoscope”.
> I was under the impression that culture and nurture play a much greater role: high quality medicine, food rich in nutrients, good education available to all.
Those play a huge role in whether genetic potential will be reached, genetics play a huge role in the actual outcome given similar environment.
> When you read the biographies of the many of the brightest academics of the USSR, many of them are descendants of a typical peasant family. Some of their parents weren't able to read or write, had a lot of children, etc. This "genetic handicap"
You describe an socioeconomic handicap, not a genetic one, so it doesn't really say anything about the effects of genetics.
> Shouldn't the people who care so much about their craft that they forgo relationships be precisely the kind that we'd want to preserve the genes of?
Why?
I'd rather preserve the genes of the people who care so much about human relationships that they forego any craft, but neither extreme is really optimal.
Why?
I'd rather preserve the genes of the people who care so much about human relationships that they forego any craft, but neither extreme is really optimal.
I think they are beneficial genes for society. I imagine much of the scientific and technological development of humanity was thanks to obsessive types.
Genes that make people form families rather than work in their craft are not exactly in a bad place, so excuse me for not being concerned about them.
Genes that make people form families rather than work in their craft are not exactly in a bad place, so excuse me for not being concerned about them.
This really is mistaking the symptoms for the cause.
You don't say? So that's how it will end?
Oh please! There is a world outside of the developed world. There are entire tribes of people all over the world that never even heard of the internet. Which now that you mention it sci-fi hardly ever addresses in futuristic stories.
Oh please! There is a world outside of the developed world. There are entire tribes of people all over the world that never even heard of the internet. Which now that you mention it sci-fi hardly ever addresses in futuristic stories.
The internet isn't there YET.
A lot of these look like children. Nowhere in the article is it mentioned that a lot of these look like children. No one in the comments has brought up that a lot of these look like children. A lot of these look like children.
This seems like a very common sentiment regarding anime especially among white people in America. I think the reason for that is partly stylistic choices of anime but if we are really honest, Japanese people if not many Asian peoples appear as children to white people. This of course seems mostly visual/aesthetically based, a similar but opposite disposition towards black people exists in America[0]. Japanese animators draw characters that emulate characteristics they find familiar, which makes sense, and thus they appear "childish" to Americans.
I could bring up old racial stereotypes regarding Asian people to further bolster this point but I think most people are aware of this.
[0] https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2014/03/black-boys-o...
I could bring up old racial stereotypes regarding Asian people to further bolster this point but I think most people are aware of this.
[0] https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2014/03/black-boys-o...
You must be new to Japanese culture.
Note that this isn't actual Japanese culture; it's made by an SF-based game studio [https://sizigistudios.com/] for an expo in LA [http://www.anime-expo.org/].
However, much of the training data is likely to be of Japanese origin.
There's a pretty simple reason: it's irrelevant to the subject of the article.
I don't know danbooru, but on another nsfw japanese comic site, 11500 of the 61973 english translated works are tagged as lolicon. Majority of the remaining are teenagers at best (because most anime are in a high school setting).
So you're not crazy. These are really young looking. It is probably just representative of the dataset. The dataset itself wasn't chosen for any malicious reason, the people who like this stuff just happen to be very prolific artists so there's a machine learning scale amount of it.
So you're not crazy. These are really young looking. It is probably just representative of the dataset. The dataset itself wasn't chosen for any malicious reason, the people who like this stuff just happen to be very prolific artists so there's a machine learning scale amount of it.
Danbooru requires one to have a 'gold' account to see pictures tagged as lolicon or shotacon. That's a $20 one-time purchase. It's not clear to me that they are using such an account.
They used an open dataset (danbooru2018) which was scraped with a gold account.
Worth noting that according to the stats listed, neither lolicon nor shotacon make it into the top 19 tags.
In this artistic style, any character appearance would get more child-like characteristics. It's more of a feature of the overall "childish" view of the world associated with this style rather than an attempt to picture actual children.
Of course, it's just my perception and your interpretation may be different.
Of course, it's just my perception and your interpretation may be different.
What did you learn today?
euske(1)
I am more into "disgusted anime girl that looks at you like you're trash" type and I couldn't find a waifu (even with their refinement steps).
Really impressed that this is even possible though!