Here’s Everything You Need To Know About Conditional Generation

What Is Conditional Generation?

In the context of AI and machine learning, conditional generation is the process of creating outputs based on specific conditions or constraints. This means the AI model isn’t only producing data freely but also tailoring it according to some specified input or guidelines.

These conditions can be text, image or code-based, similar to giving prompts to GenAI tools for achieving tasks. For instance, ChatGPT or Bard can be prompted to generate a poem on the theme of the beauty of nature, which qualifies as text-based conditional generation.

How Does Natural Language Processing Make Conditional Generation Possible?

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is crucial to enable conditional generation for text-based tasks.

1. Understanding The Conditions

• • NLP techniques like tokenisation and part-of-speech tagging help break down the input conditions (text prompts or keywords) into their basic building blocks (words, grammatical roles).
  • Semantic and sentiment analyses go deeper, extracting meaning, context and intent from the conditions. This processed information becomes the foundation for guiding the generation process.

2. Leveraging Language Models

• • Language models trained on vast amounts of text data are at the heart of conditional text generation. These models learn the statistical relationships between words and sequences, predicting the next word based on the preceding ones.
  • In conditional generation, the language model isn’t just predicting freely. The processed conditions bias the predictions, influencing the model to choose words and phrases that align with the given constraints.

3. Different Approaches

• • Encoder-decoder models are a common architecture. The ‘encoder’ processes the input conditions, capturing their meaning. The ‘decoder’ uses this encoded information to generate the output text, one word at a time, guided by the learned language patterns and the encoded conditions.
  • Attention mechanisms further enhance this by allowing the decoder to focus on specific parts of the encoded conditions relevant to the current word being generated.
  • For specific tasks like translation or summarisation, NLP techniques like named entity recognition or topic modelling can be integrated to provide even more focussed guidance to the generation process.

4. Evaluation & Refinement

• • Evaluating the generated text for coherence, relevance, and adherence to the conditions is crucial. NLP techniques like natural language inference and rouge scores can be used for this purpose. 
  • Based on the evaluation, the language model or the conditioning techniques can be further refined to improve the quality of future generations.

How Do GenAI Models Implement Conditional Generation?

GenAI models, like many other powerful generative models, utilise various techniques to achieve conditional generation, with specific methods depending on the model’s architecture and the desired output (text, images and code).

Here is a breakdown of some common approaches:

• Embedding Conditions: Text-based conditions are often converted into numerical representations called embeddings. This allows the model to efficiently process and integrate the information with the rest of the input. For example, word embeddings capture the semantic meaning of individual words, while sentence embeddings encode the overall meaning and context of the prompt.
• Attention Mechanisms: Attention mechanisms are crucial in focussing the model’s attention on parts of the input most relevant to the current generation step. For example, if the prompt describes a cat wearing a hat, the model’s attention would focus on areas related to ‘cat’ and ‘hat’ features while generating the image.
• Encoder-Decoder Architecture: This architecture, as mentioned in the NLP context, is widely used in GenAI models for tasks like text and code generation. The encoder processes the input conditions (embedded text prompt, for example) and captures their key information. The decoder, conditioned on this encoded information and the previously generated elements, iteratively generates the output (text or code snippet).
• Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs): In image generation, conditional GANs are popular. One network (generator) creates images, while another (discriminator) tries to distinguish real images from generated ones. They compete in a learning loop where the generator learns to produce images that fool the discriminator while the discriminator improves its ability to discern real from generated. The conditions can be provided to both networks to guide the image generation process towards specific criteria.
• Prompt Engineering: This involves crafting the input conditions (text prompts) to achieve the desired outcome.

Why Are Conditional Generative Models Better Than Unconditional Generative Models?

Conditional generative models offer several advantages over their unconditional counterparts, making them preferable in many situations, such as:

1. Increased Relevance & Control

• • Unconditional models generate outputs based solely on their internal understanding of the data distribution. While this can be interesting, it often leads to irrelevant or nonsensical results.
  • Conditional models, on the other hand, receive specific instructions in the form of conditions. This allows them to focus their generation on specific concepts, styles or functionalities, leading to outputs more relevant and aligned.

2. Improved Efficiency & Focus

• • Unconditional models need to explore the entire data distribution, which can be computationally expensive and inefficient, especially for large datasets.
  • By providing conditions, a user can guide the model to focus on a smaller, more relevant subset of the data distribution. This makes the generation process more efficient and leads to faster and more targeted results.

3. Enhanced Diversity & Exploration

• • While unconditional models can sometimes produce diverse outputs, they often favour statistically common patterns.
  • Conditional models allow you to explore a wider range of possibilities by varying the conditions. This can be useful for tasks like brainstorming creative ideas, generating different design options, or finding diverse solutions to a problem.

4. Better Training & Performance

• • Training unconditional models can be challenging, especially with limited data. The model has to learn the entire data distribution, which can be complex and noisy.
  • Conditional models often learn faster and achieve better performance because they focus on a more specific sub-distribution defined by the conditions. This makes them more data-efficient and less prone to overfitting.

5. More Practical Applications

• • Unconditional generation has limited real-world applications where relevance and control are crucial.
  • Conditional generation finds broader use cases across various domains, including creative content generation, product design, data augmentation, personalisation, and machine translation, where specific outputs are desired based on certain criteria.

What Are Some Of The Known Issues With Conditional Generation?

• Bias And Fairness: Generative models, including conditional ones, can inherit and amplify biases present in the training data. If the data used to train the model is biased, the generated outputs might also be biased, potentially perpetuating harmful stereotypes or unfair outcomes.
• Lack Of Interpretability: Understanding how the model arrives at its outputs, especially with complex conditions, is difficult. This lack of interpretability makes it challenging to debug errors, assess trustworthiness, and ensure the model generates outputs for the right reasons.
• Gaming And Manipulation: Malicious actors might exploit the model by crafting specific conditions to generate harmful content, spread misinformation, or bypass safety filters.
• Data Efficiency And Generalisability: Training effective conditional models often requires large amounts of high-quality labelled data, which can be expensive and time-consuming to collect.
• Ethical Considerations: The power of conditional generation raises ethical concerns around potential misuse, deepfakes, and the spread of misinformation.