Generative active learning for image synthesis personalization

Abstract

This paper presents a pilot study that explores the application of active learning, traditionally studied in the context of discriminative models, to generative models. We specifically focus on image synthesis personalization tasks. The primary challenge in conducting active learning on generative models lies in the open-ended nature of querying, which differs from the closed form of querying in discriminative models that typically target a single concept. We introduce the concept of anchor directions to transform the querying process into a semi-open problem. We propose a direction-based uncertainty sampling strategy to enable generative active learning and tackle the exploitation-exploration dilemma. Extensive experiments are conducted to validate the effectiveness of our approach, demonstrating that an open-source model can achieve superior performance compared to closed-source models developed by large companies, such as Google's StyleDrop. The source code is available at https://github.com/zhangxulu1996/GAL4Personalization.