[synnick]

The language on the landing page suggests that every time you click Try Now a new image is generated.

> Click the button below for an AI-generated abstract painting. Built for artists, developers, and hobbyists.

Really though there is a gallery of around 10,000 pngs on a Wordpress site.

Fake it 'til you make it!

[glenstein]

I would say that the part you quoted suggests it's not generated on the spot.

However,the sentence in the huge font right before the one you quoted could be reasonably interpreted to suggest it's generated on the spot. And as you mention it just looks like a gallery of images that was already generated.

It's still cool, but I'm a bit irked at the misleading framing. Gwern's website showed us amazing text generation from GPT-3, that had all been generated beforehand. We didn't have to be tricked into thinking it was generated on the spot to appreciate it, so I don't see why that's needed here.

[phalangion]

The fact that the link says “Try Now” instead of “next image” or something like that is implying that you are using the AI generation when you click the button.

[glenstein]

Agreed. I think that the button gives the implication. I was focusing on the quoted part, but you're right.

[wimpypistol]

Completely fair assessment. Thanks for the input. I look up to Gwern quite heavily, so seeing myself referenced in the same sentence is nice - cheers.

[growt]

The fine-print at the bottom explains it: "On a Tesla T4, it takes on average 0.173 seconds per novel generation." I don't think you can expect someone to pay for T4 instance 24/7 for some hobby project.

[glenstein]

>I don't think you can expect someone to pay for T4 instance 24/7 for some hobby project.

That's a needlessly uncharitable interpretation of what is happening here. The site is giving the misleading impression that these images are generated on the spot, and then walking it back in the fine print.

It's a valid criticism, and lecturing people about the economics is not a charitable engagement with that criticism.

[pdabbadabba]

That seems backwards. I think GP's point that the critics on HN are themselves being uncharitable towards the site (or maybe just missed the explanation) by acting like it's a nefarious bait and switch, rather than considering the possibility that the author of the site is just trying to save on computing costs.

He or she's not lecturing anyone about economics. In fact, if we want to talk about charity, I think that accusation is about the least charitable thing I've seen so far on this thread!

[glenstein]

I'm not seeing how either of those interpretations are accurate. The page title and body text say one thing, the fine print walks it back. The balance of emphasis definitely puts forward the impression that images are being newly generated.

And the commenter most definitely was criticizing a very strawmanny 'expectation' that they pay 24/7 to serve an image generation app, which is projection of a view that wasn't expressed by anybody and is certainly not the most charitable reading of what people mean when they say the message creates a misleading impression.

For one example, a more reasonable 'expectation' would be that the language be changed to say it's a gallery of images already generated. Which is different from the uncharitable and unreasonable assertion that everyone is expecting them to pay to maintain a server.

[sofal]

The title literally says "generate abstract paintings in one click" and it is not doing that. I clicked on it expecting it to generate abstract paintings in one click, and now my disappointment is uncharitable?

[pdabbadabba]

First of all, my post was quite clearly interpreting a prior comment, not making a claim of my own about whether anyone should be disappointed.

But since we're here: the gnashing of teeth on this thread about having been "mislead" does seem to me to be a bit out of proportion. This person really does seem to have developed a cool toy that uses AI to generate convincing abstract art, but many here aren't saying about it because they object to some of the wording on the landing page!

It's their own fault, of course, for writing the page the way that they did. But still...

[glenstein]

I think people are just making a normal, perfectly correct and reasonable observation that the description was misleading, because it really was.

But the hallmark of many internet comment threads is to try and get additional mileage out the conversation by subjecting said reasonable observations to the ritual exercise of switcheroos, contrarianism, idiosyncratic distinctions and unusual interpretations. Which leads to the original wisdom being repeated, which makes it seem like it's being blown out of proportion.

But I think the simpler explanation is just that it's a correct observation and that it's not that complicated.

[andai]

What if they stockpiled enough images so that everyone was guaranteed a fresh image? Would there be any difference then?

[acid__]

No. They could've just said something like "get a new abstract painting in one click" and used phrases like "never before seen". But as-is, their claim is just not true.

[ggggtez]

The site title claims that the user can "generate abstract paintings", but really the user can "view prerendered images".

It's misleading. I don't care if they clarify somewhere else on the site. The intention is clearly to mislead from the get go.

[wimpypistol]

This is correct. I agree with many of the commentators below - I could have been clearer. I simply didn't want to pay for a 24/7 GPU to generate on-the-spot (a little short on funds at the moment), instead opting to replace each series of 10,000 paintings once per month. Glad I could provide enjoyment to as many people as I did in the meanwhile!

[seesawtron]

That is a good insight which is not so obvious. The author should have written a white-paper for more credibility.

But I would not be surprised if the actual generation of a new painting takes less than a second as generative networks can be run quite fast to generate new image. I assume the author had the challenge of creating this new "generated" content on-the-fly in browser from the trained model and hence just loads from already generated thousands of images for convenience of the user-interaction. But yes it is a little misguided approach for Karma.

[HenryBemis]

Heh.. absolutely true:

https://1secondpainting.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/4428....

https://1secondpainting.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/4429....

https://1secondpainting.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/4430....

and so on..