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> already begun to emulate human creativity in the most intimate way I'd argue that the creative entity here is @gabeeegoooh. The machine didn't make the (pro

> already begun to emulate human creativity in the most intimate way I'd argue that the creative entity here is @gabeeegoooh. The machine didn't make the (provocative) decision to synthesize NSFW images - that artistic stroke was painted by the fingers and mind that coded up the adversarial neural net.

WhitneyLand 10y ago
One way to look at @gabeeegoooh's role is as muse; He provided the "inspiration" for the creativity.
wpietri 10y ago
Definitely. If creativity were merely the creation of interesting images, we'd have to call nature far more creative than any human artist. The Grand Canyon is beautiful, but we don't put up a plaque giving the Colorado River credit for its thoughtful use of form and color. Calling the neural network creative is like crediting Van Gogh's brushes for Van Gogh's brushwork. It's a possible use for the word, but it's very different use than the one normally meant.
- WhitneyLand 10y ago
  Van Gogh's brushes were simple tools used to render a direct expression of his intent. These networks are more akin to a child. You teach her to paint, give her input and feedback. The result may be something emotionally moving that you could have not even conceived of. Your opinion and mine are both surely subjective. However, it seems it will only become more difficult to split the hairs required to argue that machine learning creativity is fundamentally different from our own.
  - wpietri 10y ago
    Brushes are not pure transmitters of intent the way that, say, Photoshop is. Brushes (and paints and most artistic tools) have an artistic character that makes its own contribution to the artwork. I also think you ignore the interplay between medium and artist, the way intent evolves both during the course of an artist's careeer and during the production of a single work. I don't think I'm hair-splitting here. Creativity is something conscious entities do. Once we have conscious machines, they could well be creative. But until then, the creativity is the artists, even if they are using generative systems to create art. And that's nothing new. Every landscape painter and photographer is using a generative system, nature, to find interesting things worth turning into art. Giving the neural networks credit is akin to crediting the haystacks rather than Monet. More explicitly generative art, where humans set up systems to produce works, goes back hundreds of years. That interesting patterns can emerge out of randomness plus systems is obvious to anybody who has played Yahtzee. That we use more dice and more complicated systems does not change where authorship lies. Bigger systems may produce more novel outputs, but novelty and creativity aren't the same thing.
    - WhitneyLand 10y ago
      So, in what way would I be wrong if I called you a generative system? I don't see any connection to consciousness whatsoever. Imagine in the year 1900 a black box existed with a slot to input paper on one side and output paper on the other. If all physics papers available at the time were fed into it, and out popped the special theory of relativity, how is that not creativity?
      - santaclaus 10y ago
        Einstein is a black box that reads physics papers and poops theorems? Sign me up!
      - wpietri 10y ago
        You might not see any connection, but it is nonetheless how people use the word. Human language is mainly about humans and their relation to the world. If your black box contains Einstein, then yes, it's a creative act. If it contains an artificial consciousness, then yes, it's a creative act. But if it contains infinite monkeys typing randomly into LaTeX producing infinite physics papers, then no, that's not creativity, just the generation of novelty. I could call a red rock-face "angry", and I could call a mountain lake "tranquil". But that's projecting emotional states onto the external world. Calling dice creative is projecting a cognitive state onto the world. Sure, it works fine as metaphor. But it's just analogy, not homology.
        WhitneyLand 10y ago
        I've enjoyed your comments, they've helped me clarify my thoughts. It seems we disagree on what creativity is. I strongly believe humans/consciousness are not essential elements in it. For starters: 1). No dictionary seems to link creativity and humanity 2). Einstein's insights are considered some of the greatest examples of original thinking ever, and would not be diminished, or less beneficial to society, if conjured by a black box. 3). By your definition, a machine could out do a human by a thousand fold in every possible task and still not be creative. I don't think there's any precedent or foundation that would make that a tenable position.
otakucode 10y ago
And the curation of the images, the selection of which to feature, is also a very important aspect. He didn't include some images the system did or could generate. While he personally may not have, it is absolutely possible that such a decision was made in order to communicate some idea. If you take a random object, and place it in a museum, that can be art simply by virtue of the fact that you are attempting to communicate something. Art is, in my opinion at least, an attempt to communicate (typically supra-lingual ideas, concepts, feelings, etc).

WhitneyLand 10y ago

One way to look at @gabeeegoooh's role is as muse; He provided the "inspiration" for the creativity.

wpietri 10y ago

Definitely. If creativity were merely the creation of interesting images, we'd have to call nature far more creative than any human artist. The Grand Canyon is beautiful, but we don't put up a plaque giving the Colorado River credit for its thoughtful use of form and color. Calling the neural network creative is like crediting Van Gogh's brushes for Van Gogh's brushwork. It's a possible use for the word, but it's very different use than the one normally meant.

WhitneyLand 10y ago
Van Gogh's brushes were simple tools used to render a direct expression of his intent. These networks are more akin to a child. You teach her to paint, give her input and feedback. The result may be something emotionally moving that you could have not even conceived of. Your opinion and mine are both surely subjective. However, it seems it will only become more difficult to split the hairs required to argue that machine learning creativity is fundamentally different from our own.
- wpietri 10y ago
  Brushes are not pure transmitters of intent the way that, say, Photoshop is. Brushes (and paints and most artistic tools) have an artistic character that makes its own contribution to the artwork. I also think you ignore the interplay between medium and artist, the way intent evolves both during the course of an artist's careeer and during the production of a single work. I don't think I'm hair-splitting here. Creativity is something conscious entities do. Once we have conscious machines, they could well be creative. But until then, the creativity is the artists, even if they are using generative systems to create art. And that's nothing new. Every landscape painter and photographer is using a generative system, nature, to find interesting things worth turning into art. Giving the neural networks credit is akin to crediting the haystacks rather than Monet. More explicitly generative art, where humans set up systems to produce works, goes back hundreds of years. That interesting patterns can emerge out of randomness plus systems is obvious to anybody who has played Yahtzee. That we use more dice and more complicated systems does not change where authorship lies. Bigger systems may produce more novel outputs, but novelty and creativity aren't the same thing.
  - WhitneyLand 10y ago
    So, in what way would I be wrong if I called you a generative system? I don't see any connection to consciousness whatsoever. Imagine in the year 1900 a black box existed with a slot to input paper on one side and output paper on the other. If all physics papers available at the time were fed into it, and out popped the special theory of relativity, how is that not creativity?
    - santaclaus 10y ago
      Einstein is a black box that reads physics papers and poops theorems? Sign me up!
    - wpietri 10y ago
      You might not see any connection, but it is nonetheless how people use the word. Human language is mainly about humans and their relation to the world. If your black box contains Einstein, then yes, it's a creative act. If it contains an artificial consciousness, then yes, it's a creative act. But if it contains infinite monkeys typing randomly into LaTeX producing infinite physics papers, then no, that's not creativity, just the generation of novelty. I could call a red rock-face "angry", and I could call a mountain lake "tranquil". But that's projecting emotional states onto the external world. Calling dice creative is projecting a cognitive state onto the world. Sure, it works fine as metaphor. But it's just analogy, not homology.
      - WhitneyLand 10y ago
        I've enjoyed your comments, they've helped me clarify my thoughts. It seems we disagree on what creativity is. I strongly believe humans/consciousness are not essential elements in it. For starters: 1). No dictionary seems to link creativity and humanity 2). Einstein's insights are considered some of the greatest examples of original thinking ever, and would not be diminished, or less beneficial to society, if conjured by a black box. 3). By your definition, a machine could out do a human by a thousand fold in every possible task and still not be creative. I don't think there's any precedent or foundation that would make that a tenable position.

otakucode 10y ago

And the curation of the images, the selection of which to feature, is also a very important aspect. He didn't include some images the system did or could generate. While he personally may not have, it is absolutely possible that such a decision was made in order to communicate some idea. If you take a random object, and place it in a museum, that can be art simply by virtue of the fact that you are attempting to communicate something. Art is, in my opinion at least, an attempt to communicate (typically supra-lingual ideas, concepts, feelings, etc).