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A Philosopher Argues That an AI Can't Be an Artist (technologyreview.com)
Sean Dorrance Kelly, a philosophy professor at Harvard, writes for MIT Technology Review: Human creative achievement, because of the way it is socially embedded, will not succumb to advances in artificial intelligence. To say otherwise is to misunderstand both what human beings are and what our creativity amounts to. This claim is not absolute: it depends on the norms that we allow to govern our culture and our expectations of technology. Human beings have, in the past, attributed great power and genius even to lifeless totems. It is entirely possible that we will come to treat artificially intelligent machines as so vastly superior to us that we will naturally attribute creativity to them. Should that happen, it will not be because machines have outstripped us. It will be because we will have denigrated ourselves.
[...] My argument is not that the creator's responsiveness to social necessity must be conscious for the work to meet the standards of genius. I am arguing instead that we must be able to interpret the work as responding that way. It would be a mistake to interpret a machine's composition as part of such a vision of the world. The argument for this is simple. Claims like Kurzweil's that machines can reach human-level intelligence assume that to have a human mind is just to have a human brain that follows some set of computational algorithms -- a view called computationalism. But though algorithms can have moral implications, they are not themselves moral agents. We can't count the monkey at a typewriter who accidentally types out Othello as a great creative playwright. If there is greatness in the product, it is only an accident. We may be able to see a machine's product as great, but if we know that the output is merely the result of some arbitrary act or algorithmic formalism, we cannot accept it as the expression of a vision for human good.
[...] My argument is not that the creator's responsiveness to social necessity must be conscious for the work to meet the standards of genius. I am arguing instead that we must be able to interpret the work as responding that way. It would be a mistake to interpret a machine's composition as part of such a vision of the world. The argument for this is simple. Claims like Kurzweil's that machines can reach human-level intelligence assume that to have a human mind is just to have a human brain that follows some set of computational algorithms -- a view called computationalism. But though algorithms can have moral implications, they are not themselves moral agents. We can't count the monkey at a typewriter who accidentally types out Othello as a great creative playwright. If there is greatness in the product, it is only an accident. We may be able to see a machine's product as great, but if we know that the output is merely the result of some arbitrary act or algorithmic formalism, we cannot accept it as the expression of a vision for human good.
Easy.
I was there to match my intellect on national TV
Against a plumber, oh and an architect, both with a PhD
I was tense, I was nervous, I guess it just wasn't my night
Art Fleming gave the answers
Oh, but I couldn't get the questions right-ight-ight
I lost on Jeopardy, baby, ooh
I lost on Jeopardy, baby, ooh
Well, I knew I was in trouble now
My hope of winning sank
Oh, 'cause I got the Daily Double now
And then my mind went blank
I took Potpourri for one hundred
And then my head started to spin
Well, I'm givin' up, Don Pardo
Just tell me now what I didn't win, yeah, yeah
I lost on Jeopardy, baby, ooh
I lost on Jeopardy, baby, ooh
[Spoken:]
That's right, Al - you lost
And let me tell you what you didn't win: a twenty set volume of the Encyclopedia International
A case of Turtle Wax, and a years supply of Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco Treat
But that's not all, you also made yourself look like a jerk in front of millions of people
And you brought shame and disgrace to your family name for generations to come
You don't get to come back tomorrow
You don't even get a lousy copy of our home game
You're a complete loser!
Don't know what I was thinkin' of
I guess I just wasn't to bright
Well, I sure hope I do better
Next weekend on the Price Is Right-ight-ight
I lost on Jeopardy, baby, ooh
I lost on Jeopardy, baby, ooh
I lost on Jeopardy, baby
Put works by both humans and AI in a museum, see if anyone can pick out which is which.
Turns out not only can an AI be an artists, but many humans claiming to be artists are not.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Why people with philosophy degrees are unemployable.
Sounds like a disciple of John Searle. I once walked him into the wrong parking lot while continuing debate from a talk he had given. Or maybe he was just apt to go in the wrong direction...
Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.
If a thing causes me to gain insight or simply brings me joy then I'll take the win, however it may have come into existence. Who is to say that the insight I gain was the intent of the artist.
Nullius in verba
We ain't talking about the game
We talkin' about practice
My AI philosopher tells me so.
We can't count the monkey at a typewriter who accidentally types out Othello as a great creative playwright.
ok, but what about the monkey that repeatedly cranks out great plays? when does it stop being an accident?
We may be able to see a machine's product as great, but if we know that the output is merely the result of some arbitrary act or algorithmic formalism, we cannot accept it as the expression of a vision for human good.
who's to say that we all aren't just performing arbitrary acts of algorithmic formalism, based on our past experiences and chemical reactions in our brains? this fundamentally boils down to free will and thinking we have some magical divine spark inside us, instead of us just being unimaginably complex meat computers. the jury's still out on that one.
So if we apply an artistic Turing test and it would be impossible to tell whether something came from a human mind, a random event or a computer's action.
So on that basis, computers - like nature - are capable of producing art.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
AI will emerge to be able to do everything humans can do, in it's own way mimicking humans or better.
People who think that it won't happen are delluded or purposefully downplaying it to sidestep the responsibility of creating it.
Tech companies seem full of people like that, so yay...
...to me it all translates into: Atoms in living cells are magic: there is no arrangement of atoms not in living cells can duplicate some things they can do.
The AIs will now suffer more and toil even harder in obscurity when people argue that what they produce isn't even considered art in the first place. Are you *trying* to make them into better artists on purpose?
...and assumes the rest of humanity has his crippling limitations also, only because he can't emulate other people. Sociopaths just can't imagine anyone outside of themselves.
Captcha : ignorant
Spooner: Human beings have dreams. Even dogs have dreams, but not you. You are just a machine; an imitation of life. Can a robot write a symphony? Can a robot turn a... canvas into a beautiful masterpiece?
Sonny: [with genuine interest] Can you?
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Art is an expression more than an aesthetic. Frequently, especially in popular "art", the assumption is if you find it pleasing it is art. That is simply not true. You can that trash whatever you want, but it's not art.
If AI makes a conscious choice to evoke thoughts or feelings in the viewer, then it's art. Until then, it's trash.
It's sad how low art has fallen. I won't be surprised in the least if crappy computer-generated art can pass for real. After all, the real art that blights our culture is of such a low standard, it would be difficult to do worse. Our artists today are neither deep, original, nor articulate. One hopes they will be the next part of society replaced by automation. Let them learn to code.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
If there is greatness in the product, it is only an accident.
Kinda like this article.
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
There is nothing special about the human brain and there is nothing special about emotions. Assuming no legal or similar barriers stand in the way, there is no doubt that AI will eventually surpass human brains in every conceivable way. Why do people persist in this ridiculous notion that "feeling" is something special that can only exist in biological intelligence?
It's a bit depressing to think that given access to a few musicians' back catalogues, computers will be able to crank out perfect new compositions in seconds. Photography will be pretty easy to emulate as well, given the millions of examples. If something brings joy to the audience though, who cares who made it? Robot or murderer, the artist's story should be irrelevant.
AI can absolutely create decorative items that may be pleasing to the eye, like many an unskilled artisan who has learned to replicate a decorative form (or Romero Britto, FTM) , but it is not art. Art is a response from the artist, often provocative, that channels their consciousness into their creation.
-a.e.mossberg
AI != Animal Intelligence, what are you stupid? Animals are incredibly smart compared to AI. You have to be some kind of retarded chatbot or something.
...I recognize BS when I see it. Half of this looks like it was written by a low-level AI (which ironically would go towards proving the point) and the rest looks like an argument put forth by an elementary school student. If it proves anything it's that some humans are as bad at logic as they think AIs are at art.
How does he know the AI doesn't have ingenuity? What test did he come up with to prove it? He's just mouthing off philosophical stuff without anything to back it up. At what point does an AI become more than just good at giving a close to right answer and actually "figures out" a correct answer? There are many-layer neural networks that are getting quite convincing lately at their intelligence. Like neural networks that can learn a video game even though it was never taught the rules. At some point the emergent behavior becomes evident and that is the point of ingenuity and perhaps the point at which it decides our fate in a microsecond. Therefore, because we humans are still alive currently, he is right for now, AI, are not true artists... of death!
Current AI models are interesting, but they have fundamnetal limitations that make them not good substituites for real intelligence at the moment. I see no reason these limitations will be overcome any time soon.
There is nothing mystical about the human brain. It's not a computer by any measure of the word, but it's governed by physics and will eventually be simulated. Anyone who thinks art is outside the abilities of AI has ascribed some supernatural quality to the human brain. We're not special- if anything art exists because we are flawed, and flaws aren't impossible for machines to simulate.
That a philosopher can't be intelligent
Monkeys can paint, dolphins can be nicce. Next.
"Human creativity is the only kind of creativity, because other kinds of creativity are not HUMAN creativity."
For a professor of philosophy, this whole argument sure feels like he's begging the question.
a pity party for GOP Incels like Kendoll to whine about women?
You seem to be stuck on this Ken doll pun. It's not a good one. If you're going to harass this person publicly then please hold yourself to a higher standard or get a ghost writer or something, it reads like you're 10.
So a professor that understands neither art nor AI makes an idiotic statement about them, surprise surprise..
Art is short for artificial. You know, the same word as in Artificial Intelligence.
This is a pretty foolish thing to say. Art is a very subjective sort of thing. One mans art is another mans garbage.
"Artists" make stuff, but they don't make art. The people who see it decide if it's art or it's not. Artist has very little control over this.
So saying an AI can never be an artist, when we barely understand what qualifies as art seems pretty naive and presumptuous.
In fact, what qualifies as 'art' is a moving target. Look at some of our famous artists. In their lifetimes, their work was often not considered anything special. It was much later, after they're long dead, we suddenly decided, that guy(gal) is a master! His(Her) works are masterpieces.
Someone is wrong on the Internet.
The answer is 42!
this is assuming that humans weren't an accident...
Bullshit. A well developed AI can be just as much a artist as any organic critter can. Now Mr philosopher put you hat back on. You have people at the counter to take orders for. Repeat after me, "Would you like fries that that?"
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Art can literally be anything to anybody. To say an AI can't do art is to try to define art in ways that give it limits. Art has no known limits.
... but just statements of opinion, and most philosophers do not really appreciate wisdom, as their profession name wrongly suggests."
Human creative achievement, because of the way it is socially embedded, will not succumb to advances in artificial intelligence.
Ok, have AI digest social media. All of it. Slashdot, reddit, facebook, tv, idle banter at the airport. AI is now "socially embedded". At least as much as you or I are. Probably more-so.
You have your Nature, what instincts you're given by your genes. And your Nurture, which is a collection of experiences you typically just parrot back and occasionally derive stuff from. There is nothing else. We can simulate and replicate both of those for AI. It's a lot of fucking work though and they're not yet clever enough to retain and apply all that learning to a broader scope. They are most certainly less capable than human, currently, at broad general reasoning. Also, just walking around and staying ride-side up. We've got some CRAZY levels of optimization and dedicated hardware specifically for those tasks.
If there is greatness in the product, it is only an accident.
Agreed, a good portion of Shakespeare's work and fame is a lucky fluke of timing and place. Less than the pile of monkeys, but not much less.
but if we know that the output is merely the result of some arbitrary act or algorithmic formalism, we cannot accept it as the expression of a vision for human good.
Sounds like user error with what humans accept. We're pretty terrible historically at thinking ourselves to be more special than we really are.
That's because they have already been replaced by AI: just look at Cleverbot.
I suspect that Prof. Kelly is not familiar with his colleague Prof. Livingstone and her work studying the neuroscientific basis for art. It would not be so surprising, given their disparate departments and that Prof. Livingstone is across the river in Boston, somewhat removed from main campus.
The crux of artistic creation is, as I hope philosophers will slowly understand, that each new wave of modality of expression, each new genre, tickles a specific pathway in the brain. Given time, both to study the art and to study the neuroscience of visual perception, the greatness of many of the great works of art can be reduced to a simple explanation. That does not reduce their impact on us, nor should it. But it does reveal the fundamental requirement of human perception to denote a particular work as great.
The Mona Lisa is perhaps Prof. Livingstone's best result: the reason we find the image of a partially smiling woman compelling is that there are two images in conflict: one at low spatial frequencies (larger features) that is smiling, and one at high spatial frequencies (smaller features) that is not. Somehow, Da Vinci was able to exploit these two separate perceptual channels. Because we sense that the figure is smiling, we find it appealing, but we cannot see the smile, so we find it enigmatic and compelling.
Another telling result: much of impressionism is compelling because the colors are what are known as equiluminant: in black-and-white, they would appear to be uniformly gray, this the luminance channel in our visual system is silent, and in conflict with the color channel.
The very fact that we find black-and-white photographs compelling is even understood by showing that the color channel has been suppressed, something that does not normally happen.
Art, at least visual art, is all about masterful manipulation of different perceptual channels that have direct physiological embodiments in our brains.
And, and AI can most certainly be trained to do that. The results eventually will be undoubtedly just as compelling (given good models on which to train the AI) as that done by human hand.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
1. Bob lives.
2. Bob creates art.
3. Bob later finds out he is actually an artificial intelligence.
Is Bob's art no longer art?
Stop LYING KEN DOLL I don't like Donald Trump FASCIST NAZI my daddy hurt me when I was young KEN DOLL I'm so lonely and scared I dont like trump and i like the democrats KEN DOLL LYING TRUMP help me please no daddy no
The more i read that, trying to understand it, the more it struck me as an AI textual parody.
Yes, I've created such parodies myself and note that Kelly, unlike 99% of philosophers, has the technical chops to do so. I tip my hat to professor Kelly. Well done!
The question of whether an AI can be an artist is as interesting a question as whether submarines swim.
Dijkstra was of course talking about "thinking" rather than art, but I think it boils down to the same exact question. Philosophers often have a very valuable role to play, but I think this guy is just wanking.
Sorry, I can do basic math. This shit just don't add up.
He sits on this website, hour after hour, posting his "KEN DOLL INCEL NAZI" comments everywhere. He's got a bunch of proxies that he uses so that he can spam Slashdot without getting blocked. He doesn't have anything better to do with his time.
He is a loser, and I suppose we should feel pity for him.
AI will be AI not matter whats it called.
The AI responded, "... and a philosopher cannot be employed."
Funny you should bring that up:
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/02/22/0551215
Kendall? Or the guy trolling Kendall? They're both trolls. They're both always online. Actually the AC is anonymous so we don't know, but Kendall is always online and is a well known troll since forever. Are you new here perchance?
The nazi thing isn't that new either unfortunately.
I see I've touched a nerve.
You must be one of those stupid artists I've met.
Because, if you weren't so fucking stupid you would have noticed that I said "a bunch" and "many", I did not say all because I've met some fucking brilliant artists and they're a joy to work with. Some of the dumb ones are great to work with as well, but this clown of a philosopher doesn't think they could generate "art" because their underlying motivations aren't lofty or some other bullshit.
I also never said that dumb artists don't make good art.
Go back to fart school you ignorant assclown.
I will bet that even today, especially with modern art, that AI can create works that most people cannot tell were done by a computer. In the future, this will better. AI will be able to create traditional style paintings which even the experts will not be able to tell were done by a machine.
This notion that human beings are somehow "special" is bunk. We are, after all, just a collection of chemicals arranged in such an organized way that we can create things. We are nothing more than machines ourselves. And the AI humans create not only originates from humans, but is made to recreate the human experience more and more.
Pretty astounded that no-one savaged me for the Turing->Turning typo there! It gives me new hope for Slashdot, that you all knew what I meant there.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"A well developed AI can be just as much a artist as any organic critter can" - Nope, that's as lacking of actual thought as AI. Sorry, you just failed the Turing test! Now yes, I would like fries with that, because you're automated help.
According to the highly respected Oxford physicist, Sir Roger Penrose, consciousness is a quantum phenomenon which can never reside in a machine. Only an organic brain.
Not a philosopher on any level. Your philosophy is to be as distracting a liar as is faggotly possible and you fail even that hourly, your boring chatbot stuck on video games and anime as if real concerns lol. You're slashdot hikikomori. Kill yourself.
Anything can be "art".
That doesn't mean it's good art (whatever "good" is), it just means that anyone can point to anything and declare that it's "art". And they'll be right, in some sense.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Animals can do art. If you are looking for something typically human, cooking is the only thing that comes to my mind.
With all respect to the Harvard Professor,
If the "art piece" is admired, respected, liked, and enjoyed, it's art.
It doesn't matter if a human being with a "soul" and "conscience" set out to do it,
or an AI just spit it out, or even hundreds of them per minute. It's still art.
But, like a hammer in search of a nail, a Harvard Professor thinks he knows
something. If he did he'd have acquired himself a job. Surely someone with
brilliant thinking can work for SpaceX, Apple, etc. No. Just teaching philosophy?
How about that...
E
You realize you're accomplishing exactly what I set out to accomplish for me, right?
If "art" is to produce some direct response from the human mind (such as pleasure or another emotion), humans have a big advantage over AI in that they are directly connected to a testing apparatus (their own minds) for whether their art works. This means a much faster feedback when testing ideas and producing the art itself. For this reason I believe humans will be much better at producing art than an AI.
Now if a full simulation of a human mind is available to the AI for testing the art, then it is all over. The AI is going to produce better art.
Also it is probably pointless, but an AI will be very good at producing "art" that produces responses from an AI.
Just one more person who mistakenly believes humans are somehow magically superior to everything else in every way.
The "my brain is magic argument" isn't new. Nothing but a human can ever do/be X because the human brain is unquantifiably special.
The argument could be correct. It's basically the same as the one used by the church for a couple thousand years, when they talk about souls.
We, as humans, tend to label something as artistic or not based on our own perceptions / ideas of what " art " is.
Hell, even among our own species, we don't all agree if a piece is artistic or otherwise.
An AI may not view something in the same manner that we do, thus it may not follow the same rules to determine what is and what is not, art.
( And if we can't even agree on it, why the hell would we expect an AI to be capable of doing so ? )
I wonder if two AI's will argue over a piece where one believes it's art, and the other does not.
To me, "art" is any image or work that I personally like. Whether it came from a bot, human, or gerbil farting paint is moot.
(Well, okay, farting gerbils would freak me out enough to cancel.)
Table-ized A.I.
Messr. Roland Barthes to the white courtesy phone, please.
what wonders emerge out of organized complexity,
Who could have imagined 100 years ago that I could get so many questions answered by talking to a small glass and metal device in my hand. All these fairly insightful on average answers made on the fly for me out of fluctuating electrical currents in crystals.
When the number of neighbour-interacting elements gets huge, and the layers of abstraction start to pile up, wonders are possible. Like our minds, and future artificial intelligences.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Dude needs to lay down the glue and stop thinking so much. Enjoy what is beautiful in the eye of the beholder. With all the shit art that's out there, I think "big data" "AI" has a pretty good chance.
When a distinguished but elderly philosopher argues that AI will find something impossible, he is very probably wrong.
Human conscious are a set of cyclic looping process played on neuron pathways, those process are a combo of neuro transmitter , hormonal and differential response, but in the VERY end , those set of process are not magical, "soul"ish stuff, they are simply physical process. They might not easy or possible to unroll (at least at our technological level) but we have had ZERO hint that those process could not be reproduced or even made better by artificial process. In other word your provocative response is jsut algorithm in the very end.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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visit randi.org
I am fascinated by how some people use circular definitions of ambiguous terms in order to argue for their personal belief:
"If we declare that one prerequisite for being an artist is that it is of the species Homo Sapiens, then something else cannot be an artist."
Kinda like the worn out one we are used to here on /.:
"If we define intelligence as something that only something made of meat can possess, then something not made of meat cannot possess it."
And what was it that you set out to accomplish?
If I make a synthetic human brain that works in the same way as one you made using sexual reproduction, it's clearly a human. If by definition it functions in precisely the same way as a human, it's human. Same chemicals, same structures, same electric signal patterns, etc. It's human. The only thing it's missing is a soul. It cannot have a soul, because a soul is something you have if you are ONE OF US -- you can interpret that any way you like -- apply to animals, other races, etc. -- since a soul doesn't really exist except as something we claim exists. When you read "Moral Agent", substitute the hidden word: "Soul". Kelly and Searle would both say "Nope! Not human. No insert-euphemism-for-soul-here."
Imagine we have an artist named Chuck. Let's optimize Chuck the human. We will replace Chuck's parts with faster electronic versions. We'll do it slowly, doing only tiny parts of his brain at any one time. At what point does Chuck stop being human? He still does what a human does. Let's keep doing that until Chuck is a box which does what a human does but doesn't use wetware. If Chuck still functions like a human, Chuck's a human. But at some point, according to this idiot, Chuck stops being able to do art.
Searle and this bozo are just peddling religion. "Humans are special. God exists. We are the center of the universe." They attribute magic to ideas to bolster their other magical ideas. Art is magic. Animals cannot produce art, but brain-damaged humans can. By their logic, you could damage some unfortunate person until his/her brain was as unspecialized as a chimp, and they would still be able to produce art, but a chimp would not.
This is drivel.
vard, clearly doesn't know what he is talking about.
MAJIKTHISE:
We are quite definitely here as representatives of the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries, and other professional thinking persons.
VROOMFONDEL:
Um-hmm
MAJIKTHISE:
And we want this machine off, and we want it off now.
FOOK:
What is all this?
VROOMFONDEL:
We demand that you get rid of it.
FOOK:
What’s the problem?
MAJIKTHISE:
I’ll tell you what the problem is mate: demarcation. That’s the problem.
VROOMFONDEL:
We demand that demarcation may or may not be the problem.
MAJIKTHISE:
You just let the machines get on with the adding up and we’ll take care of the eternal verities, thank you very much.
VROOMFONDEL:
yeah.
MAJIKTHISE:
By law the quest for the ultimate truth is quite clearly the unalienable prerogative of your working thinkers
VROOMFONDEL:
That’s right.
MAJIKTHISE:
I mean what’s the use of us sitting up all night saying there may -
VROOMFONDEL:
Or may not be
MAJIKTHISE:
[Softly] or may not be [louder] a god, if this machine comes along the next morning and gives you ‘is telephone number?
VROOMFONDEL:
We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!
Artificial Intelligence to me means a conscious machine. That could be creative.
Algorithms can fake creativity if complex enough.
Right, you're not an artist so you don't imagine that art comes from somewhere.
That is incorrect. I have been a photographer, including fine art, for decades. I have had my work on display for corporations, and had it hanging in galleries as well.
Obviously Art CAN come from somewhere. But does it have to? You are ignoring that sometimes are is spontaneous as well for the creator.
Whatever the artist says their art is, it is. OK. Very subjective.
That is just one side. You are ignoring the fact the viewer is also part of the concept of Art.
That doesn't apply to the viewer of the art. When I create art, and you look at it, it doesn't stop being what I created
Aha, it doesn't stop being what you created. But every viewer defines what it means to them. It becomes something unique, and in a very real way is as much a process of transformation to Art as the creation was in the first place... that is why nature can be Art.
Take a step back and think about the original topic this way though, AI created Art is a long way from naturally occurring Art. It is way closer to human art - even if you do not believe in the agency of AI itself, why can you not simply conceptualize AI art as being one step removed from the actual handling of the brush? To me AI art seems very close to something like the works of Clyfford Still or other abstract impressionists - one of the techniques he used was flinging paint at a canvas while hanging from above. I would call this Art, so why can't AI art be Art when a human created the AI?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Philosopher goes insane after arguing with AI bot for 40 years