Research Highlights: Generative Adversarial Networks

In this regular column, we take a look at highlights for important research topics of the day for big data, data science, machine learning, AI and deep learning. It’s important to keep connected with the research arm of the field in order to see where we’re headed. In this edition, we feature a new paper on Generative Adversarial Networks. Enjoy!

AI Under the Hood: Object Detection Model Capable of Identifying Floating Plastic Beneath the Surface of the Ocean

A group of researchers, Gautam Tata, Sarah-Jeanne Royer, Olivier Poirion, and Jay Lowe, have written a new paper “DeepPlastic: A Novel Approach to Detecting Epipelagic Bound Plastic Using Deep Visual Models.” The workflow described in the paper includes creating and preprocessing a domain-specific data set, building an object detection model utilizing a deep neural network, and evaluating the model’s performance.

Applying GANs to Image Generation Tasks

This contributed article by Maksym Tatariants, PhD, AI Engineer at MobiDev, overviews StyleGAN2 application to image generation task and is based on MobiDev’s logotype synthesis research. When it comes to powerful generative models for image synthesis, the most commonly mentioned are StyleGAN and its updated version StyleGAN2.

AI Under the Hood: Playform

In this installment of “AI Under the Hood” I introduce recently launched Playform (Artrendex Inc.), a generative AI collaborative tool for artists. The company’s tech publicist reached out to me around when the global pandemic became serious, so it’s taken a while for me to write this review. But I was impressed with all the materials the company provided me for making a technology assessment. As a previous researcher myself, I’m always excited when a company sends me a link to an arXiv.org paper written by a founder. Nice touch!

Front Cover of a Book Entirely Created by Artificial Intelligence

The newly released book “The A.I. Age” represents a historic moment and new
landmark in the story of AI with its February 2020 publication. The front cover of the book has been entirely created by Artificial Intelligence (AI) by selecting the winning cover design and overlaying the text.

Sophisticated AI Will Make The Deepfake Problem Much, Much Worse

In this contributed article, front end developer Gary Stevens suggests that the deep fake video issue is still in its infancy. As AI advances, discerning real from unreal news will become exponentially harder.