Looks Too Good To Be True: An Information-Theoretic Analysis of Hallucinations in Generative Restoration Models

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Cohen, Regev, Kligvasser, Idan, Rivlin, Ehud, Freedman, Daniel
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866929560873861120
author Cohen, Regev
Kligvasser, Idan
Rivlin, Ehud
Freedman, Daniel
author_facet Cohen, Regev
Kligvasser, Idan
Rivlin, Ehud
Freedman, Daniel
contents The pursuit of high perceptual quality in image restoration has driven the development of revolutionary generative models, capable of producing results often visually indistinguishable from real data. However, as their perceptual quality continues to improve, these models also exhibit a growing tendency to generate hallucinations - realistic-looking details that do not exist in the ground truth images. Hallucinations in these models create uncertainty about their reliability, raising major concerns about their practical application. This paper investigates this phenomenon through the lens of information theory, revealing a fundamental tradeoff between uncertainty and perception. We rigorously analyze the relationship between these two factors, proving that the global minimal uncertainty in generative models grows in tandem with perception. In particular, we define the inherent uncertainty of the restoration problem and show that attaining perfect perceptual quality entails at least twice this uncertainty. Additionally, we establish a relation between distortion, uncertainty and perception, through which we prove the aforementioned uncertainly-perception tradeoff induces the well-known perception-distortion tradeoff. We demonstrate our theoretical findings through experiments with super-resolution and inpainting algorithms. This work uncovers fundamental limitations of generative models in achieving both high perceptual quality and reliable predictions for image restoration. Thus, we aim to raise awareness among practitioners about this inherent tradeoff, empowering them to make informed decisions and potentially prioritize safety over perceptual performance.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2405_16475
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Looks Too Good To Be True: An Information-Theoretic Analysis of Hallucinations in Generative Restoration Models
Cohen, Regev
Kligvasser, Idan
Rivlin, Ehud
Freedman, Daniel
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Image and Video Processing
The pursuit of high perceptual quality in image restoration has driven the development of revolutionary generative models, capable of producing results often visually indistinguishable from real data. However, as their perceptual quality continues to improve, these models also exhibit a growing tendency to generate hallucinations - realistic-looking details that do not exist in the ground truth images. Hallucinations in these models create uncertainty about their reliability, raising major concerns about their practical application. This paper investigates this phenomenon through the lens of information theory, revealing a fundamental tradeoff between uncertainty and perception. We rigorously analyze the relationship between these two factors, proving that the global minimal uncertainty in generative models grows in tandem with perception. In particular, we define the inherent uncertainty of the restoration problem and show that attaining perfect perceptual quality entails at least twice this uncertainty. Additionally, we establish a relation between distortion, uncertainty and perception, through which we prove the aforementioned uncertainly-perception tradeoff induces the well-known perception-distortion tradeoff. We demonstrate our theoretical findings through experiments with super-resolution and inpainting algorithms. This work uncovers fundamental limitations of generative models in achieving both high perceptual quality and reliable predictions for image restoration. Thus, we aim to raise awareness among practitioners about this inherent tradeoff, empowering them to make informed decisions and potentially prioritize safety over perceptual performance.
title Looks Too Good To Be True: An Information-Theoretic Analysis of Hallucinations in Generative Restoration Models
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Image and Video Processing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.16475