Define generative model

Value

The term is popular. Does it provide a useful abstraction?

Cost

In practice

The term is part of the name GAN, which is a model, so it must be one (at least to the author in 2014):

• Generative adversarial network

According to OpenAI (2016), a generative model is:

• Generative models - OpenAI

This commentator defines both VAE and GAN as generative models:

• What are the fundamental differences between VAE and GAN for image generation? - AI SE

A simple and up-to-date definition:

• Background: What is a Generative Model? | Generative Adversarial Networks | Google Developers

According to SR2, all Bayesian models are generative. It’s likely the word “generative” was initially created to provide a hypernym (umbrella term) for both Bayesian models and GANs, which both generate observations (later AR models like PixelRNN were added to the mix).

Tertiary definition

In the following article, Wikipedia defines (going back to 2002, 2004 references) what a generative model is and at least two things it is not:

• Generative model

See also:

• Discriminative model