Generative modeling is one of the hottest topics in artificial intelligence. Recent advances in the field have shown how it's possible to teach a machine to excel at human endeavors--such as drawing, composing music, and completing tasks--by generating an understanding of how its actions affect its environment.
With this practical book, machine learning engineers and data scientists will learn how to recreate some of the most famous examples of generative deep learning models, such as variational autoencoders and generative adversarial networks (GANs). You'll also learn how to apply the techniques to your own datasets.
David Foster, cofounder of Applied Data Science, demonstrates the inner workings of each technique, starting with the basics of deep learning before advancing to the most cutting-edge algorithms in the field. Through tips and tricks, you'll learn how to make your models learn more efficiently and become more creative.
Get a fundamental overview of deep learning Learn about libraries such as Keras and TensorFlow Discover how variational autoencoders work Get practical examples of generative adversarial networks (GANs) Understand how autoregressive generative models function Apply generative models within a reinforcement learning setting to accomplish tasks
Usually I don't review the books due to my incompetence, but seeing none of the reviews yet, I am obliged to provide one.
Thanks to a tweet, I saw this book and it's kind of both author and O'Reilly to share it. It was quite disappointing to see the Goodfellow's own book (it's not his fault - GAN was still in it's first year then) having a brief mention of the topic. No doubt, a compelling need for a (detailed) book on the topic was pressing on - especially with every new advancement in the field.
This book is not short of flaws: Typos, pretty dull examples (still trying to get over the terminologies used in the GAN one) and then all the sudden throwing you in the hot waters of complex mathematics, history of GAN beginning with Goodfellow's talk at NIPS and ignoring the interesting story of it's discovery, mentioning LSTM in advance of RNNs, using existing Keras-GAN repository for code, etc.
But despite all these cons, it would be premature to write this book off. This is one of the first books on the topic, gives many insights where blogs fail, even a dummy like me can begin generating data due to detailed explanation, and shows author is up-to-date (as we see in nearly all the book but especially ch. 8 and 9).
I think this book can grow to be an excellent one (provided if author really wants to - he was bit laid-back when he cross-referenced to other blogs for detailed explanations while reader expects them here) if next edition would encompass exercises, further expansion of the concepts and maybe some co-author as well. I definitely enjoyed reading it - learnt lot of things which I didn't know before. Looking forward to up the ante by shifting to practical side now (playing with it's notebooks).
The author has explained the theoretical aspects of Generative Deep Learning, Amazingly. He used fictions for clarifying complex topic. thats great! the programming aspects, the book has several issues. The codes are correct, but there is no comment. Author didnt mentioned some aspects of program, because he supposed that we know what he thought, but reader is not in his mind. In other words, if you haven't implemented generative deep learning programs prior reading book, it would be hard for you to use the programs.
It's a great book, awesome explanations but falls short because of some rushed up chapters. The chapters related to computer vision are very good. I'm a Computer Vision Engineer and I loved reading it. Some metaphors used were really good particularly the ones about the variational autoencoders, but some are cheesy and weren't really helpful, I didn't mind these.
The parts related to NLP and attention mechanisms were not good enough. With all due respect to the author, I felt that I could have explained some things better. The intuition part was not covered in these areas as much as when dealing with images. I'd have loved lesser focus on code and more emphasis on the explanation.
And some parts I was not good enough to understand, the ones where he talks of music generation, despite good familiarity with the underlying technologies. So these parts are definitely not for non-practioners. I'd have to do some more reading to understand this music part.
I felt the final few chapters were very rushed. Particularly when NLP started. I'd have loved seeing a fatter book, which is something I don't say often.
After all is said and done, this is still a wonderful book and very entertaining. A must read.
I like this book, though I'm not sure who the target audience is.
The author covers a lot of interesting concepts using fun metaphorical stories-- e.g. explaining LSTMs with a prison guard trying to coordinate groups of prisoners in cells to write him short stories, or explaining VAEs with art collectors tryng to decide where on their gallery wall to place their paintings. These stories are memorable for me, but I wonder if it's because I pretty much already understood the math/theory behind them. I have a feeling that less technical readers would get less from these fun expositions, which is a problem because the author's intent seems to be to target exactly these non-technical readers, as evidenced by the fact that there's so little math in this book.
Regardless, I think the author's included Keras code is really elegant, and it shows how accessible deep learning software can be, even when re-implementing cutting edge research ideas that are only a few years old. For example, David Ha and Jurgen Schmidhuber's amazing 2018 NeurIPS paper "World Models" () is given an entire chapter and covered in great detail. If you are interested in AI-based art, music, or language generation, this book might be a good start.
A really useful read, great for whetting your appetite for a wide range of generative topics. From image generation to text and music, this book covers all the main areas of generation, while also touching on some less known areas in the field. The concepts are explained, more or less, clearly and the accompanying parables are very useful in getting the idea across (although some of them are a bit forced, like the apples/oranges one). The book does not go into a lot of details, which is not a bad thing since it allows the reader to more easily pick and choose the topics they want to invest more time in.
Overall, a nice read. Recommend it to everyone who wants an overview of the field, although at times you need to skim through some sections.
"Generatives Deep Learning" von David Foster ist ein faszinierendes Buch, das tief in die Welt des generativen Deep Learning eintaucht. Es bietet eine fundierte Untersuchung der Techniken, Modelle und Anwendungen, die in diesem neuen Bereich der künstlichen Intelligenz entwickelt wurden. Programme, welche dies nutzen sind unter anderem Open Ai's Chat GPT oder Google Bards.
Besonders gut gefallen mir die technischen Details und Erklärungen, die das Buch bietet. Foster gelingt es, komplexe Konzepte verständlich zu machen, indem er klare Beispiele und präzise Erklärungen liefert. Die Beispiele sind besonders hilfreich, da sie den Lesern ermöglichen, Deep Learning besser zu verstehen, sei es in klassischen Anwendungen wie der Zahlenerkennung (Bilderkennung durch Inputs) oder in anspruchsvolleren Projekten wie der Musikgenerierung. Zusätzlich sind die zahlreichen Analogien serh anschaulich, die Foster verwendet, um die komplexen Konzepte zugänglicher zu machen. Diese Analogien helfen dem Leser, abstrakte Ideen besser zu erfassen und erleichtern das Verständnis der zugrunde liegenden Prinzipien.
Allerdings ist es wichtig zu betonen, dass aufgrund der Komplexität des Themas "Generatives Deep Learning" möglicherweise nicht das ideale Buch für absolute Anfänger ist. Personen, die sich gerade erst mit Deep Learning vertraut machen, könnten möglicherweise von einem Buch wie "Deep Learning - Grundlagen und Implementierung" profitieren, das einen einfacheren Einstieg in die Materie bietet.
Insgesamt ist "Generatives Deep Learning" von David Foster ein äußerst informatives und gut geschriebenes Buch, das einen tiefen Einblick in die Welt des generativen Deep Learning bietet. Es ist eine wertvolle Ressource für alle, die ihr Wissen auf diesem Gebiet erweitern möchten.
This is an accessible and practically useful guide to generative AI, with an emphasis on pre-transformer models including variational autoencoders, GANs, and recurrent neural networks. This is a heavily application-driven text, with code and datasets available for you to play along (though requiring for sure some adjustments to get the assuredly out-of-date repository to install properly). I felt the example projects were fun: facial image generation with VAEs, artistic style transfer with GANs, and music composition using RNNs with attention, among several others. Transformers are covered quickly towards the end, and though GPT was only released up to version 2.5 when this book was written, the author can tell big things are happening with these powerful language models.
But, as with any text that covers difficult, complicated matters at a high-level, in a sort of 'just start getting your hands dirty' kind of way, key concepts aren't always given the attention necessary for maximum groking. Sometimes statements of considerable depth are made without elaboration or support, and this is annoying. But, here you can just dig a little deeper into the original literature if you've got an itch that Foster doesn't scratch (he does consistently reference key prior work).
If you're new to generative AI and want to get up to speed with this world-changing technology, this is a sound starting point.
This book is an essential read for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of AI, especially in the context of generative models. This book excels in its comprehensive coverage of critical topics like variational autoencoders, Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), and advanced architectures including the Transformer and sophisticated GAN models.
The book's exploration of world models is particularly intriguing, offering insights into how AI can simulate and predict complex environments. It skillfully bridges the gap between theoretical concepts and practical application, making complex topics accessible through clear explanations and practical code examples. This approach not only enhances understanding but also encourages practical experimentation.
Overall, the book is a valuable resource for both AI enthusiasts and seasoned professionals, offering a deep dive into the exciting and rapidly evolving field of generative deep learning.
I would definitely rate this book higher once the code base is documented. Overall, the concept explained is done very well. However, the level of details, and shall I say effort, are not the same in the latter part of the book. Especially for the generating music chapter. I understand that the book goes over quickly on a few part, otherwise it would be a few hundred of pages more ( I wouldn't mind that at all, considering how well the author explains the concept when he tries to do so). But some parts are just very difficult to understand without the proper documentation of the code, and any explanation in the book. I hope the author will start commenting his code on git hub soon enough, allowing for more readers to have a clearer understanding of what is going on under the hood
I wanted a nice theoretical overview of the current state of neural net based AI. Boy howdy, did this book deliver! A very deep dive into the generative aspects of modern AI. I believe I got far more than I expected.
That said, this is not meant to be a theoretical introduction. Mr. Foster encourages experimentation and gives you plenty of tools and pointers to pursue that on your own. I didn't have the time nor inclination to do so on this read but will certainly build some nice nets on my next read. And there will be a next read. This book is chock full of facts and ideas.
The concluding chapter (aptly titled "Conclusion") presents encouraging words about the future of AI tools and how they will enhance skills we humans already possess. Take heed, young'uns, this is your future.
Very glad I chanced upon this book. This guide to state-of-the-art Gen AI research is both comprehensive and deep. It helps you grasp the underlying architecture, building blocks and mathematical intuition of wide variety of gen AI models (ranging from text to images to music to multi modality models). The book expects some background in stats and probability theory. It can be a heavy read at times but that's when you know this has the depth to actually get what's going on in these models and not just learn to call a few APIs in a phyton program. Although, it does include a set of coding exercises too. Strongly recommended.
This is a fine book, however it’s hard to say who the target audience is. On one hand, the author explains concepts using not-so-helpful examples (like a prisoner guard trying to write prose with the help of the prisoners) assuming that you’re so far off from the topic and that you will not understand LSTMs without such a story, on the other hand he tries to explain and reproduce state-of-the research in AI using quite some mathematical detail. This makes the whole reading experience dull for both hobbyists and professionals in different ways.
The book is well written. There is a perfect balance of theory and hands-on task. The code provided along with the book is also top quality, well documented and readable.
My favourite aspect of the book are the short stories which opens every chapter. These stories immediately tells about the content of the chapter while staying brief and generates an interest to learn more about it. I wish more technical authors adopt this style of writing.
5/5 recommended if you wish to learn about generative modelling.
Impressionante como em menos de um ano da publicação já vimos ainda mais avanços (GPT-4, por exemplo). Esse não é um livro que vai te ensinar a treinar um LLM ou modelo multimodal num passo a passo, mas não deixa de ser valioso por conta disso. Apesar da (longa) parte introdutória, é altamente recomendado que se tenha uma boa base em Deep Learning, ML, Python e afins para absorver melhor o conteúdo. De maneira geral, livro bem escrito, organizado e que oferece uma boa base dos conceitos fundamentais para ficar por dentro do boom de GenAI. Vale a pena.
The book provides a high level summary of important models/ papers published in past few years in the field of Generative ML. Good for beginners or for revising concepts.
Pro - Cherry picks best papers and explains intuitively Cons - Good for first few chapters but for complex papers seems all over the place.
This book isn't really for beginners like me who ask a lot of "why" questions. The author jumps right into deep learning, briefly covering basic math concepts. But honestly, the simplified math explanations and the classification task exercises just left me even more confused.
It’s a good review of generative deep learning. But it has a problem with it public. Is not for basic users, but it lacks the depth of more advanced texts. It also has some gaps in things that should have been explained.
Very readable, with some cute analogies and generally clear explanations. Great overview of a lot of info. The concluding material also helps bring the book up to date and into context with today’s latest developments.
A good summary of GANs but too many allegories. I don't really appreciate too many detours into stories that distracts from understanding the behaviour of systems.
very technical book for me. I scanned over a lot of parts to understand the high level first. I may go back or use this book as a reference to learn other details.
Currently one of the few books that dives deep into the technical details of generative technologies like GPT and StableDiffusion. The examples are in Keras, I’d have preferred PyTorch. At the beginning of the book he has a cutsy metaphor for the technologies but he gets lazy about that towards the end.