Generative models struggle with kirigami metamaterials

Abstract Generative machine learning models have shown notable success in identifying architectures for metamaterials—materials whose behavior is determined primarily by their internal organization—that match specific target properties. By examining kirigami metamaterials, in which dependencies between cuts yield complex design restrictions, we demonstrate that this perceived success in the employment of generative models for metamaterials might be akin to survivorship bias. We assess the performance of the four most popular generative models—the Variational Autoencoder (VAE), the Generative Adversarial Network (GAN), the Wasserstein GAN (WGAN), and the Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Model (DDPM)—in generating kirigami structures. Prohibiting cut intersections can prevent the identification of an appropriate similarity measure for kirigami metamaterials, significantly impacting the effectiveness of VAE and WGAN, which rely on the Euclidean distance—a metric shown to be unsuitable for considered geometries. This imposes significant limitations on employing modern generative models for the creation of diverse metamaterials.