The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine.
We were once promised self-driving cars and robot maids. Instead, we’ve seen the rise of artificial intelligence systems that can beat us in chess, analyze huge reams of text, and compose sonnets. This has been one of the great surprises of the modern era: physical tasks that are easy for humans turn out to be very difficult for robots, while algorithms are increasingly able to mimic our intellect.
Another surprise that has long perplexed researchers is those algorithms’ knack for their own, strange kind of creativity.
Diffusion models, the backbone of image-generating tools such as DALL·E, Imagen, and Stable Diffusion, are designed