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Dartmouth Contests Showcase Computer-Generated Creativity
An anonymous reader writes: A series of contests at Dartmouth College will pit humans versus machines. Both will produce literature, poetry and music which will then be judged by humans who will try and determine which selections were computer made. "Historically, often when we have advances in artificial intelligence, people will always say, 'Well, a computer couldn't paint a sunset,' or 'a computer couldn't write a beautiful love sonnet,' but could they? That's the question," said Dan Rockmore, director of the Neukom Institute for Computational Science at Dartmouth.
The contest itself was created by a computer.
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first first
Moo!
Apps!
Hosts!
Goatse!
You are all computer-generated cows. Computer-generated cows say moo. MOOOOOOOOOOO! MOOOOOOOOO! Mooooo cows MOOOOOOO! Moooo say the computer-generated cows. YOU COMPUTER-GENERATED COWS!!
Computers certainly can do those things.
A much better, and much more fundamental question is - "Would a computer ever WANT to paint a sunset, or write a sonnet?"
People have struggled with their own motivations for some time. AI is just beginning to consider these factors.
Can they? Almost certainly. Why would someone want to?
..don't panic
A major feature of the Turing Test is that it is interactive: later lines of conversation are sent to the computer after earlier lines of conversation are known. A 'Turing Test' where someone is given a transcript and asked to decide who in the transcript is human or computer is a much weaker test. A more 'Turing Test' like test would be one where I give the computer/human a brief to draw a sketch in, say, an hour, and see the end result, then get to ask for a few more sketches. The kind of thing they are developing here is more like an algorithm to generate a single line of conversation given knowledge (pre algorithm design) of the previous lines in the conversation.
Even so, computer generated art is something which should be explored, and then the art will be in finding new clever ways to use the computer as an artistic medium.
John_Chalisque
Do you want Skynet? Because that's how you get Skynet.
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not only no, but Hell No.
It has been over a week since SCOTUS gayed up marriage, now it is time to gay up computers.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Isn't that affiliated with Duke University?
Real art, in it's natural form, from humans anyway, comes from discovering new truths of the world around us and expressing them in a form that appeals to one or more of the five senses. Since comptuers can only understand what they know, and not infer on new understandings, they cannot, and never will be able to, create real art.
Example: A computer can recreate the Mona Lisa in a near infinite number of ways. It cannot, however, create the original Mona Lisa without there having been a Mona Lisa to create from.
This is a fundamental understanding of information, on which computers rely on. They cannot make shit up. I can make shit up. I can lie, a computer cannot. A lie from a computer is a truth from some other piece of information, or a reversal in its logic/answer.
Dartmouth men in 2015 are still unable to discern intelligence in human females
"When better women are made, Dartmouth men will make them"
There are humans at Dartmouth!?!? Who knew?
What males this program any different from the countless others that build more or less plausible scripts and stories from a set of stereotypical building blocks?
"If you locked 1,000 code monkeys in a room with Teletypes, could they pump out some Shakespeare?"
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
This contest pits Human artists against Human machine programmers (who are also artists, but opinions on this may vary). One holds a paints brush, the other a violin, a third one a computer.
It is not the computer that generates the art works, just as the paint brush and the violin do not create the art.
They construct a picture of a sunset or a sonnet from a different set of criteria. (usually other works). It might _seem_ like the same thing and ever better than the real thing but the journey is just as important as the destination when it comes to things like this. A poem is worth nothing is the entity that wrote it don't even understand it it self.
Can we get a computer to create art? It is an interesting idea to see how close a computer can get to what we recognize as art. But even if it comes up with something good, there will still be people who will say "Computers cannot create art. By definition they just can't. If a computer has created it, it can't be art, full stop. No discussion."
To get around this mental barrier, let me pose a different question. Suppose you were to make something like the little robots that are exploring Mars now, but they are going to another star system. They can send back information and wait for orders, so they are going to have to pick a planet to land on, pick a landing site where they are likely to survive, and also be near some 'interesting stuff'.
The first pass might be to get the probe to execute a fixed program, where all the major decisions were taken by the programmer. However, we rapidly get to a state where we cannot program for all possible situations that the probe may encounter because the program becomes too big. We get a more general robust response if the device can calculate the best guess risks and rewards for particular actions for itself. "If I descend into this crater, I get to see all the strata as I descend, but I may not be able to get out again." My left front motor tells me my wheel is not turning, but my camera tells me it is: which do I believe?"
It is going to be on a strange planet by itself. Do you want it to fear its own death? To long for the companionship of its peers? To get angry when something does not work? To yearn to reproduce? To resent being asked to work without reward? To ponder the nature of its own language? To want to paint a sunset, instead of taking a picture? These are probably major parts of our heritage as beings that have evolved by selection, but our probe has no use for them, and only a sadist would force it to have them.
Getting a computer to do something non-computer-like is an intriguing thing to do. It tells us something about ourselves and what being creative may mean. But it does not necessarily represent a step the ascent of a computer from a calculating engine to true intelligence.
If a human machine programmer can, say, put out ten musical albums of comparable quality to the one that a human recording artist can put out in the same time, that's still a win for having the best tool for the job.
It is going to be on a strange planet by itself. Do you want it to fear its own death?
Yes, in the sense that a robot should take duration of its useful mission as an optimization parameter.
To long for the companionship of its peers?
Not in a lone mission, but yes in a mission where multiple robots must cooperate, such as one rescuing another from a crater.