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Can AIs Create True Art? (scientificamerican.com)
An anonymous reader shares an analysis: Last month, AI-generated art arrived on the world auction stage under the auspices of Christie's, proving that artificial intelligence can not only be creative but also produce world class works of art -- another profound AI milestone blurring the line between human and machine. Naturally, the news sparked debates about whether the work produced by Paris-based art collective Obvious could really be called art at all. Popular opinion among creatives is that art is a process by which human beings express some idea or emotion, filter it through personal experience and set it against a broader cultural context -- suggesting then that what AI generates at the behest of computer scientists is definitely not art, or at all creative.
The story raised additional questions about ownership. In this circumstance, who can really be named as author? The algorithm itself or the team behind it? Given that AI is taught and programmed by humans, has the human creative process really been identically replicated or are we still the ultimate masters? At GumGum, an AI company that focuses on computer vision, we wanted to explore the intersection of AI and art by devising a Turing Test of our own in association with Rutgers University's Art and Artificial Intelligence Lab and Cloudpainter, an artificially intelligent painting robot. We were keen to see whether AI can, in fact, replicate the intent and imagination of traditional artists, and we wanted to explore the potential impact of AI on the creative sector.
[...] Intriguingly, while at face value the AI artwork was indistinguishable from that of the more traditional artists, the test highlighted that the creative spark and ultimate agency behind creating a work of art is still very much human. Even though the Cloudpainter machine has evolved over time to become a highly intelligent system capable of making creative decisions of its own accord, the final piece of work could only be described as a collaboration between human and machine. Van Arman served as more of an "art director" for the painting. Although Cloudpainter made all of the aesthetic decisions independently, the machine was given parameters to meet and was programed to refine its results in order to deliver the desired outcome. This was not too dissimilar to the process used by Obvious and their GAN AI tool.
The story raised additional questions about ownership. In this circumstance, who can really be named as author? The algorithm itself or the team behind it? Given that AI is taught and programmed by humans, has the human creative process really been identically replicated or are we still the ultimate masters? At GumGum, an AI company that focuses on computer vision, we wanted to explore the intersection of AI and art by devising a Turing Test of our own in association with Rutgers University's Art and Artificial Intelligence Lab and Cloudpainter, an artificially intelligent painting robot. We were keen to see whether AI can, in fact, replicate the intent and imagination of traditional artists, and we wanted to explore the potential impact of AI on the creative sector.
[...] Intriguingly, while at face value the AI artwork was indistinguishable from that of the more traditional artists, the test highlighted that the creative spark and ultimate agency behind creating a work of art is still very much human. Even though the Cloudpainter machine has evolved over time to become a highly intelligent system capable of making creative decisions of its own accord, the final piece of work could only be described as a collaboration between human and machine. Van Arman served as more of an "art director" for the painting. Although Cloudpainter made all of the aesthetic decisions independently, the machine was given parameters to meet and was programed to refine its results in order to deliver the desired outcome. This was not too dissimilar to the process used by Obvious and their GAN AI tool.
"True art". What does that even mean?
sig: sauer
Art is whatever a society says it is. The Tate Gallery in London have such pieces of art as a pile of bricks. Thus, if a sufficiently large percentage of a society says that something is art, it is art.
Of course, this begs the question of value, meaning, truth, beauty, or anything else that art is supposed to be and speak to in the context of a worldview and philosophy that denies all these things (i.e., postmodernism).
Check your premises.
Dressing like your sister
Living like a tart
They don't know what you're doing
Babe, it must be art
Seriously, what IS art? More and more it seems to me we define as art "whatever we don't get". By that metric, it's pretty certain that AI can create art, because it should be trivial for an AI to produce something we have no idea what it's supposed to "tell" us.
If art is beauty and beauty is art, then of course an AI can do that too. It should be trivial for AI to create a photorealistic sculpture or painting, and that's what many people would consider "beautiful".
If art is something that should make us think and change our point of view, even that should be doable. An installation by an AI that the AI created with the express idea to give us a glimpse into how it sees the world would offer us a view into the "mind" of an AI.
So what is art? The question is is in my opinion rather, what makes something a human creates art?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Because AI doesn't really exist. What people call "AI" are just parlor tricks and computers running programs.
Art dealers just failed it...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Some works are going to be greatly assisted by automation, others not at all, and some only slightly so.
I've certainly found this to be the case with music. For certain genres, I can use Band In A Box to do a good 3/4 of the work of creating the accompaniment. I can even let it come up with multiple melodies and instrumental solos, and then edit them into one "take" that I like by stitching fragments together and maybe shifting them in range to make them transition better. For some tracks, though, I can't use BIAB at all. Either it has no idea how to handle the genre, or it's just too far outside the mainstream, like covering Metallica with a string quartet. BIAB can do Metallica, and it can do string quartets, but it can't really grasp how to merge the two without someone making a MIDI file "explaining" how it is to do that, or creating a custom style.
Sometimes software is responsible for the majority of composition, and I just basically edit, orchestrate, and render it. Examples: 1 | 2 | 3. On the opposite end, on many tracks the computer is little more than a digital instrument and a tracker that tells it when to play, while all instruction is input by me personally. Examples: 4 | 5 | 6. Which one is better? I'm convinced I write the tunes with greater replay value, but when scoring for a game, that's not always the highest concern. Sometimes what is desired is outside my wheelhouse, but I know software can handle it, like example 3. Sometimes it's a genre where I'm merely competent, and good automation (directed by me) has value in coming up with ideas, as in the case of example 2. But other times I want to do something different, like example 4 and its shifting time signatures and 5-tone equal temperament. I don't know of any software that generates microtonal or xenharmonic music like this. (Perform it? Yes, but not WRITE it.)
Which are better? Generally, the ones I put the detail work into are the better ones. If the automated stuff sucks, I just kick the software until it spits out something I like, so either I'll eventually get a decent result, or no result at all. But all of them have a place -- not every moment in a game calls for high art in the soundtrack. Sometimes it only takes two chords to set up a mood.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
Would be as capable of creation as a human. If the AI can't create, neither can the human.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The human brain is just an algorithm.
A very big and complicated algorithm, yes, but still only a Turing Complete algorithm.
Thus, self-awareness and the capacity to declare something art are merely products of sufficiently complex algorithms.
By implication, you cannot argue that humans can do anything a sufficiently advanced AI cannot. The difference isn't in the nature, only in the scale.
You can, at best, argue weak AI cannot create art.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Weak AI is a tool, granted.
Strong AI, by definition, is an individual no different from any other artist.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
No, intelligence is not a prerequisite for 'world class art'.
Google the artist Pierre Brassau. His paintings were exhibited at art shows, and were as a rule appreciated more than the ones by other artists on display. He got praised for lack of pretense, for his long, uninterrupted strokes, for his expert use of color, etc.
As an aside, he chose his colors by a simple rule - the ones that tasted good, he ate; the rest he used in his paintings. He was an young chimpanzee from the local zoo.
The fact remains, his paintings were subjectively better than those of many artists working in the same field. There are people fond of avant-garde art and expressionism, and they did appreciate his art. His paintings did not become worthless just because he was revealed as an ape. Who the hell knows what makes art appeal to a specific person, at a specific time?
So, it is trivially true that A.I. can produce art. Especially if it uses a 'monkeys with a typewriter' approach primed with 'successful art', whatever that is.
And now time for an old guy digression.
When I was in high school, I had a drawing on my room's wall. It was a color plot of rather complex mathematical function, that looked a bit like a spiral, and a bit like a sunburst. I had printed it when installing a color plotter in a manufacturing plant in Sopot, Bulgaria (In the 80s, color plotters were a bit deal behind the Iron Curtain, and being able to read the manual AND finding the 'ANY' key at the same time was a valuable combination of skills)
I went back home a few years back, and I still enjoyed the drawing. It has color, it has movement, it brings memories back. Is it art? Fuck if I know. But I like it, and it did not take an A.I. to create it. I tried to make a color wheel, I unwittingly left a variable uninitialized, and then liked the effect, introduced a variation in the radius, and ended up with something I have now hanging in my office. People have asked me where I got it/who the artist is.
An algorithm could create things like this all day long. It would not be A.I, but frankly, neither is 90% of what journalists tout as such.
No good deed goes unpunished...
Like a mechanical cookie cutter creates a cookie. An AI (speaking of the currently moronic versions of such) can only 'create' what it is directed to. Otherwise, it will sit there forever like a paperweight.