A terrifying AI-generated woman is lurking in the abyss of latent space
... We are all regularly amazed by AI’s capabilities in writing and creation, but who knew it had such a capacity for instilling horror? A chilling discovery by an AI researcher finds that the “latent space” comprising a deep learning model’s memory is haunted by least one horrifying figure — a bloody-faced woman now known as “Loab.” ...
... From what dark corner or unconscious associations sprang Loab, fully formed and coherent? We can’t yet trace the path the model took to reach her location; a trained model’s latent space is vast and impenetrably complex.
The only way we can reach the spot again is through the magic words, spoken while we step backward through that space with our eyes closed, until we reach the witch’s hut that can’t be approached by ordinary means. Loab isn’t a ghost, but she is an anomaly, yet paradoxically she may be one of an effectively infinite number of anomalies waiting to be summoned from the farthest, unlit reaches of any AI model’s latent space.
It may not be supernatural … but sure as hell ain’t natural.
See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/13/loab-ai-generated-horror/
