Data Management Glossary
Generative AI
Generative AI is a branch of artificial intelligence (AI) that focuses on creating models or systems capable of generating new content, such as images, text, music, or even video, that is original and realistic. Generative AI models learn patterns and structures from existing data and then use that knowledge to produce new, unique outputs.
Generative Models
Generative AI models are designed to learn and understand the underlying patterns in a given dataset and generate new samples that resemble the original data. These models aim to capture the distribution of the training data and generate outputs that are consistent with that distribution.
Varieties of Generative Models
There are several types of generative models, each with its own approach and architecture. Some common types include Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), Variational Auto-encoders (VAEs), and autoregressive models like Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) and Transformers.
- Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) consist of two neural networks: a generator and a discriminator. The generator creates new samples, while the discriminator evaluates the generated samples and distinguishes them from real samples. The two networks are trained in competition with each other, with the goal of improving the quality of the generated outputs.
- Variational Auto-encoders (VAEs) are generative models that learn the underlying distribution of the input data and generate new samples by sampling from that distribution. VAEs typically consist of an encoder that maps input data to a lower-dimensional latent space and a decoder that reconstructs the original input from the latent space.
Applications of Generative AI
Generative AI has seen a growing number of practical applications – from generating realistic images, synthesizing human-like speech, creating music, to generating natural language text, to enhancing and transforming existing content, and even to generating virtual environments for simulations and gaming.
Challenges and Ethical Considerations
Generative AI poses challenges and ethical considerations. Ensuring that generated outputs are diverse, realistic, and unbiased is a challenge that researchers and developers strive to address. There are concerns about potential misuse of generative AI, such as generating deepfake images or spreading disinformation.
Video: The role of data management and governance in AI
Generative AI Advancements and Research
Generative AI technology innovation is moving very fast and is an active area of research and development. New architectures, techniques, and approaches are constantly being explored to improve the quality and diversity of generated outputs. Researchers are also working on methods to control the generation process and incorporate user preferences or constraints.
Generative AI has gained significant attention and has found applications in various domains, including art, entertainment, design, and data augmentation. It offers exciting possibilities for creating new content and expanding the capabilities of AI systems beyond traditional problem-solving and pattern recognition tasks. ChatGPT and Google Bard are examples of Generative AI tools.
