The physics behind diffusion models

Abstract

Diffusion models build on the same mathematical framework as physical diffusion. In this video, we get to the core of the connection between the physics of motion and generative AI.

Topics covered:

• The intuition of probability landscapes (data as peaks, noise as valleys)
• Forward diffusion: how real data is gradually noised into chaos
• Brownian motion, Wiener processes, and the physics of particle motion
• Stochastic differential equations (SDEs) and the noise schedule
• Training a score function model (a “compass” in the probability landscape)
• Reverse diffusion and Anderson’s reverse SDE (sampling from noise to data)
• Probability flow ODEs for faster, deterministic sampling

🔗 Main resources:

• Full reading list: / physics-behind-136741238
• DDPM: Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models (https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.11239)
• Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equations (https://arxiv.org/abs/2011.13456)