How do GANs work, why is training unstable, and why did diffusion overtake them?
GANs shaped generative modeling for years, and interviewers look for the minimax game, the failure modes (mode collapse, instability), and the exact reason diffusion overtook them for images while GANs still lead on speed.
Updated Sep 2026 · Grounded in real GenAI, LLM, and AI/ML engineering interview loops and written to a senior-engineer editorial bar.
GANs shaped generative modeling for years, and interviewers look for the minimax game, the failure modes (mode collapse, instability), and the exact reason diffusion overtook them for images while GANs still lead on speed.
Lead with where the obvious approach breaks, because that is the judgment they are screening for — most candidates jump straight to the happy path and lose the room.
Then walk the failure back through the pipeline in order, naming the one metric the customer's exec sponsor actually cares about before you propose the fix.
