  We study unsupervised learning by developing introspective generative
modeling (IGM) that attains a generator using progressively learned deep
convolutional neural networks. The generator is itself a discriminator, capable
of introspection: being able to self-evaluate the difference between its
generated samples and the given training data. When followed by repeated
discriminative learning, desirable properties of modern discriminative
classifiers are directly inherited by the generator. IGM learns a cascade of
CNN classifiers using a synthesis-by-classification algorithm. In the
experiments, we observe encouraging results on a number of applications
including texture modeling, artistic style transferring, face modeling, and
semi-supervised learning.
