[liuru]

Indeed, we spent 2 years working on this!!!

It's an extremely hard research problem, because darker skin tones account for only about 0.3% of all anime art produced in the world.

We have employed an absolutely exhaustive array of art and data science tricks to give the model the ability to draw darker skin tones, though they are underrepresented. The results that you see today are the culmination of many months of careful tuning!

It's not definitely perfect, but from a data science perspective, this situation can't be rectified until the art world makes a shift.

Personally, I hope that more art representing dark skin tones will be created in the world!

[numpad0]

I don't quite understand the need to mandate racial caricaturizations in every modes of communication. I would find it upsetting if every pieces of texts and quotes were prefaced with an "origin" indicator to aid forming prejudices. Why have it in manga?

[blackbrokkoli]

If you are part of a marginalized group, it is both nice to the individual and productive for societal-level integration if you find yourself represented in media, especially if it's a generator with a promise of "generate anyone".

No one here is mandating shit, GP asked a friendly question in a most respectful manner, which prompted an informative answer from OP even. If such interaction generates such an allergic reaction in you, the problem is not with the grandparent comment.

[numpad0]

> societal-level integration

I really think this integration predominantly means systemic internalization of racism, with side effect of affirmative actions. When ethnicity is expressed with intent, a distinction is made, and distinction is synonymous to discrimination. Or classification, for that matter.

[GoblinSlayer]

What do you want to tell an otaku about marginalized groups?

[educaysean]

What mandate? It's a product designed to be used by living, breathing people and people tend have various preferences. Do people requesting darker skinned models somehow upset you more than people who request red haired models?

[numpad0]

Okay, I backtrack a bit, GP didn't specify that they want an adjustable ethnicity, only skin colors, and I made an assumption that exaggerated ethnic features is the intent.

[pfisherman]

I can’t understand why the GP comment is flagged. If you can look past all the “culture war” stuff, this is pointing out some of the limits of algorithmic creativity.

It does not do well generating instances with features that are not well represented in the training dataset.

Compare this to human creativity. I suspect that fulfilling GPs request would be almost trivial for a human professional artist.

To be clear this is an amazing achievement, a creative use of the technology, and a positive contribution to the world. Pointing out limitations (i.e. areas with potential for future innovation) does not diminish it.

[Simon321]

That's because humans have also seen a lot of human beings with diverse skin tones. If we had only seen anime our whole life it would be much more difficult for us to conceive of also. With more compute, we will eventually be able to make bigger models with more knowledge of the world that will also be able to overcome this.

[pfisherman]

I think that is correct, but also a much much easier said than done when it comes to the implementation.

[KaoruAoiShiho]

Thanks, happy to hear that you guys are on top of it.