flâneur

Unpredictable Black Boxes are Terrible Interfaces

magrawala.substack.com · 2,409 words · saved by 1 readers

Why generative AI tools can be so difficult to use and how we might improve them

I recently decided I should update the profile picture on my webpage. Yes, I too have fallen into the academic trap of using a terribly out-of-date picture on my webpage. As a Computer Science Professor, I figured the easiest way to produce a high-quality photo would be to generate it using DALL-E2. So I wrote a simple prompt, “Picture of a Professor named Maneesh Agrawala” and DALL-E2 made an image that is … well … stunning. From the text prompt “Picture of a Professor named Maneesh Agrawala” a black box generative AI model (i.e., DALL-E2) can produce an amazingly coherent photo. From…

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