A great @quantamagazine.bsky.social article on our theory of creativity in convolutional diffusion models lead by @masonkamb.bsky.social See also our paper with new results in version 2: arxiv.org/abs/2412.20292 to be presented as an oral at @icmlconf.bsky.social #icml25

An analytic theory of creativity in convolutional diffusion models

We obtain an analytic, interpretable and predictive theory of creativity in convolutional diffusion models. Indeed, score-matching diffusion models can generate highly original images that lie far fro...

arxiv.org

Quanta Magazine@quantamagazine.org · last yr.

A new paper shows that the “creativity” of certain AI may actually be a direct, inevitable consequence of how they are built. Webb Wright reports: www.quantamagazine.org/researchers-...

Honored to have had my recent work with @suryaganguli.bsky.social on the mechanisms behind creativity in diffusion models featured in this lovely article by Webb Wright for Quanta magazine!

Quanta Magazine@quantamagazine.org · last yr.

A new paper shows that the “creativity” of certain AI may actually be a direct, inevitable consequence of how they are built. Webb Wright reports: www.quantamagazine.org/researchers-...

NEW: Mason Kamb ‪( @masonkamb.bsky.social ‬) from @stanford.edu‬ presents a predictive theory of combinatorial creativity in diffusion models. Watch the video: youtu.be/DP_kGt0-2cg #NeuroAI2025 #AI #ML #NeuroAI

An Analytic Theory of Creativity in Convolutional Diffusion Models with Mason Kamb

Mason Kamb from Stanford University joined the Frontiers of NeuroAI Symposium on June 6, 2025, to discuss "An Analytic Theory of Creativity in Convolutional ...

youtu.be

The DOGE etc. damage to US science will have enormous effects that will linger for decades. But they will be sufficiently gradual and diffuse that people who want to pretend the cause wasn't obvious will be able to do so.

Alexandra Witze@alexwitze.bsky.social · last yr.

We polled Nature readers to ask if they were thinking of leaving the US for jobs abroad. Three-quarters of them (who said they were US-based scientists) said yes. 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

In another blow to legacy media, I'm hearing that the Trump administration plans to remove The Atlantic from its war-plans group chat. The outlet will be replaced in the chat by the Gateway Pundit.

real instructive that just by paying attention to the background hum of regular small plane crashes the media has created a perception of a sharp increase

Finally got to reading the fascinating & excellent paper by Kamb and Ganguli, which makes a significant contribution to diffusion/GenAI literature & will likely become one of the most-cited works in this space. Unlike many "theoretical" ML studies, theirs is high-dimensional and practical.. 1/n

Mason Kamb@masonkamb.bsky.social · 2y ago

Excited to finally share this work w/ @suryaganguli.bsky.social Tl;dr: we find the first closed-form analytical theory that replicates the outputs of the very simplest diffusion models, with median pixel wise r^2 values of 90%+. arxiv.org/abs/2412.20292

Our new paper! "Analytic theory of creativity in convolutional diffusion models" lead expertly by @masonkamb.bsky.social arxiv.org/abs/2412.20292 Our closed-form theory needs no training, is mechanistically interpretable & accurately predicts diffusion model outputs with high median r^2~0.9

Excited to finally share this work w/ @suryaganguli.bsky.social Tl;dr: we find the first closed-form analytical theory that replicates the outputs of the very simplest diffusion models, with median pixel wise r^2 values of 90%+. arxiv.org/abs/2412.20292