RI: Small: Integrating physics, data, and art-based insights for controllable generative models

Generative models refer to a large class of machine learning techniques that can generate user-specified media – including images, video, 3D environments, and text – from inputs such as text prompts, sketches, or other user provide images. New generative models are rapidly being developed and are seen as increasingly important in many different applications such as in chatbots and automation. Current generative models are characterized by extremely large models trained on web-scale data, but on closer inspection are found to be unreliable in critically important contexts. This project focuses on generative models for visual media, where current generative models will be advanced by leveraging prior knowledge about how visual features can be described by physical and statistical laws. The sources of knowledge that will be leveraged include physics-based knowledge, insights from traditional content creation techniques, and advances in modeling latent-spaces using novel geometric methods. The anticipated benefits include more robust models, smaller scale models, and more interpretable and modular models. This research systematically investigating the basics of generative-adversarial networks. The first task considers the role of the input probability distribution from which samples are drawn, generalizing to non-parametric distributions tuned to reduce distribution mismatch under sample mixing. The second task involves architectural novelty in terms of detail layering, where synthesis is broken into a series of simpler architectures. The third task focuses on developing reduced parameter discriminator models, using orthogonality-type constraints as a proxy for physical variables like lighting, texture, and deformation. The fourth task focuses on developing shape-aware architectures, using learnable polynomial basis functions to represent shape more directly. Applications for these methods include augmenting training-sets to create trustworthy machine learning models in contexts such as manufacturing and health, where it is difficult to gather large training sets. Curricular innovations include creating access to these approaches for non-STEM students, in a class titled Machine Learning for Media Arts. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.