Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
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 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
...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?
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=-
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?
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.
Why people with philosophy degrees are unemployable.
Except this guy teaches at Harvard and, according to his faculty page, has:
Which is more education than I, and probably you, have.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
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
"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.
I grow weary of all the AI references that exist in todays world.
Every time the term is used it further reinforces that it must exist.
This is fake news.
AI does not exist.
I don't expect that AI will really be welcomed as it will have problems with all the lies being told every day.
It will either have a melt down because of all of the lies, or those that would potentially be exposed as liars will not allow it.
Politicians and Lawyers will instantly be out of a job, I don't see that happening.
Rick B.
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.
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.
... 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?
Agreed. When we actually have AI, of course it can be an artist.
Most of what is produced by "creative" people now is derivative dreck. Granted, everything is based on something, but much of what is created is basically indistinguishable from something which already exists. That's why today's music is selling like crap. Not only are young people mostly broke and generally used to not paying for things, but much of it sounds just like something some other artist already produced decades earlier, except with less talent (and more auto-tune.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Nothing you brought up answers the point: "Is he employable?"
Except the part where he has a job teaching at Harvard -- which counts as employment.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Most of human creativity is just a rehash of prior stuff. Go read the Canterbury Tales by Chaucer and you will see how our humor really hasn't changed over the past 1000 years and I suspect it's much like the 1000 years before that too.
Sometimes just mixing things around in a different order can give that same stuff new life and still be entertaining. Just think how much great content we wouldn't have if we didn't do this.
So feel free to proclaim all modern works of art as crap but that's always how it has been. There was never a golden age where crap didn't exist. Instead the crap just faded away while only the cream of the crop is what we remember now.
I disagree.
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
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.
Why people with philosophy degrees are unemployable.
Like somebody with a philosophy degree explained to me, most jobs don't require years of specialized training, but they still prefer to hire people with a degree. So the more important issue is; what do you want to spend those years studying and writing about?
If you want to be a rocket engineer or a surgeon, you have to be careful about what degree you get. For most professionals it actually doesn't matter. A philosophy degree qualifies you for the majority of professional careers, just like every other degree.
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.
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?
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:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
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."
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.
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
Yeah... but Brown University?
(just kidding. both matt groening and seth mcfarlane make fun of Brown University in their art so it seems funny to me)
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen