michael_nielsen

Very nice! “Using AI to Augment Human Intelligence” by @shancarter and @michael_nielsen shows (and nicely explains) some of the applications of machine learning in the context of type design. Some of those I hypothesized at @typostammtisch in April. https://distill.pub/2017/aia/ 

I would not object to changing the whole paradigm of a font from a collection of glyphs to a “shape generator” (e.g. some neural network?).

Knuth got there first in like the 1960s with METAFONT. :) Definitely an opportunity to use something like InfoGAN to take the hard work out of a neural METAFONT, though.

Was Knuth really the first to use vector description of type? Seems unlikely. Bezier curves were used well before that in design, though maybe not for type? (I'm sure @rosettatype knows the history much better than me, though!)

I think he was. I read the METAFONT papers a few weeks ago and I don't recall him citing any prior art and he describes the Bezier curves & parameterizations as his innovation.

I am not sure about whether he was the first for either of these. @ANRT_type would know. But it does not matter so much, Metafont was definitely the most successful at the time.