The latent space of any collection of objects is essentially the behind-the-scenes set of control knobs that you could adjust to create any given object in the collection. For example, consider all of the chairs in the world.
You might imagine a magic chair factory with a showroom containing a single generic chair, and a control panel that contains hundreds of knobs. You can’t manufacture your dream chair, but you can pick up a pencil and make a sketch of it.
When you enter the factory, the factory operator looks at your sketch and starts turning various knobs right or left. Every time a knob is adjusted, the shape of the chair changes.
If the factory operator is really good, after a while the chair in the showroom starts to look a lot like the chair in your sketch. When the process is complete, that generic chair has turned into your dream chair.
Basically, the knobs in that control panel represent the latent space of all possible chairs. And any particular chair corresponds to a particular setting of those knobs.
More tomorrow.