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My personal feeling is that art must at least attempt two things simultaneously: express an intent by the artist, and present an intent to the audience. The suc

by hbosch 9y ago

My personal feeling is that art must at least attempt two things simultaneously: express an intent by the artist, and present an intent to the audience. The success and congruency of these intents is largely superficial, but in my opinion the intent must be present on both sides. The simple way of describing intent is by feel... a work of art e.g. should display the feeling of the artist and be able to be felt by the audience — this is what makes art a human quality. It is intended to be decoded in human ways. I believe that AI, and any life form, can perhaps create beautiful works that affect audiences emotionally... but to me art is a fundamentally human to human transaction (before any conversation on technical merit or intelligence can even be waged). Edit: even more simply, a computer can write “I love you” but what does that statement mean if the computer cannot feel love?

js8 9y ago
In other words, you deny AI the capability to create art, regardless of what it can objectively create. Because you can always say, "the machine had no intent". But this runs into a problem - if you don't know that the piece was created by a machine, you might assume intent and judge it as an art. Does it stop being an art when you learn that there was no intent? What if you learn that about a human piece of art? > a computer can write “I love you” but what does that statement mean if the computer cannot feel love? Actually, it's not different from humans. What gives "I love you" meaning is the actions, for example, caring about the other persons well-being. If a computer cares about someone, for example, by protecting it, that alone gives "I love you" the meaning, regardless of what computer can really feel or if the phrase "I love you" was just programmed into it.
- jnordwick 9y ago
  It doesn't stop being art; it never was art. It was a picture that fooled the observing into thinking it wss art. Take a chat bot that can pass the Turing Test. It seems human to the observer, but that doesn't mean it is. And when the observer learns of their mistaken belief, the chat bot doesnt just then become a bot.
  - js8 9y ago
    I could give you the same reply I gave OP. If you determine what is art based on the process of its creation, and not solely on the result, then you deny AI the capability to create art. I personally don't need to know anything about the circumstances of the creation of art piece to think of it as art (or sometimes not). If the author relies on this (for his work to be judged as art), he should have put it into the work itself.
    - EGreg 9y ago
      Aren't we just quibbling over definitions? "If you determine what is art based on the process of its creation, and not solely on the result, then you deny AI the capability to create art." OK and?
    - jnordwick 9y ago
      > then you deny AI the capability to create art. Yes. That's what is whole thing is about - AI cannot create art because it lacks a human component. A tighter question would be can animals create art? I don't know the answer to that one.
      - js8 9y ago
        > Yes. That's what is whole thing is about - AI cannot create art because it lacks a human component. What I mean by "deny the capability to create art" is that you decided that whatever the AI might have created in the future, and without even looking at it, it's not art. It's sort of an extreme position, I think.
- sh33mp 9y ago
  >But this runs into a problem - if you don't know that the piece was created by a machine, you might assume intent and judge it as an art. Does it stop being an art when you learn that there was no intent? What if you learn that about a human piece of art? I don't see this as that big of a problem? Something can be beautiful without being art, but art tends to elicit a different kind of discussion specifically because there is intent behind it. As a thought experiment, consider a particularly beautiful natural formation (like corals or intricately eroded rock). It can be beautiful without it being art. If someone then told me that it was actually sculpted by a person, then to me it's now art. I can ponder what the person was trying to express when they created it. If someone else then told me the previous person lied and it's really just a natural formation, then it's back to being not art. If we were able to detect "intent" in an algorithm (although that is a hairy discussion in and of itself - arguably we could consider objective functions intents, but in that case I defer to the individual's interpretation as to whether that's intent or just clean study of a mathematical process), then yes, it would become art.
  - js8 9y ago
    You're right that we exclude "works of nature" from art, despite having objective artistic qualities (being beautiful, eliciting emotions, etc.). In that sense, art must be created by humans. The question then becomes - is the thing created by AI still considered to be created by human, or by nature? And based on this, we can then classify it as art or not.
    - AstralStorm 9y ago
      Mostly because nature presents little intent. This is also why fractals are not considered art. If an AI is able to present intent clearly and consistently (uhh, intentionally) then it might be able to produce art. So far, I haven't seen any purely AI work that meets this criteria. They can have style but lack the "story" quality of the art built on shared language, culture. Essentially grammar and semantics of given art form. Problem is similar to though harder than making AI really understand language. These system generally end at style which is like an ensemble average of syntax.
nitwit005 9y ago
Paintings aren't painted by humans, they're painted by paint brushes. Therefor, they are not art. That statement is ridiculous on the surface, but humans have always used tools and machines to produce art, which have gotten more and more sophisticated over time. No matter what machine is used, there's still a human designing the thing. There's no magical cutoff where you can say "This was not produced by a human". It's just that the degree of indirection has increased over time.

by hbosch 9y ago

js8 9y ago

In other words, you deny AI the capability to create art, regardless of what it can objectively create. Because you can always say, "the machine had no intent". But this runs into a problem - if you don't know that the piece was created by a machine, you might assume intent and judge it as an art. Does it stop being an art when you learn that there was no intent? What if you learn that about a human piece of art? > a computer can write “I love you” but what does that statement mean if the computer cannot feel love? Actually, it's not different from humans. What gives "I love you" meaning is the actions, for example, caring about the other persons well-being. If a computer cares about someone, for example, by protecting it, that alone gives "I love you" the meaning, regardless of what computer can really feel or if the phrase "I love you" was just programmed into it.

jnordwick 9y ago
It doesn't stop being art; it never was art. It was a picture that fooled the observing into thinking it wss art. Take a chat bot that can pass the Turing Test. It seems human to the observer, but that doesn't mean it is. And when the observer learns of their mistaken belief, the chat bot doesnt just then become a bot.
- js8 9y ago
  I could give you the same reply I gave OP. If you determine what is art based on the process of its creation, and not solely on the result, then you deny AI the capability to create art. I personally don't need to know anything about the circumstances of the creation of art piece to think of it as art (or sometimes not). If the author relies on this (for his work to be judged as art), he should have put it into the work itself.
  - EGreg 9y ago
    Aren't we just quibbling over definitions? "If you determine what is art based on the process of its creation, and not solely on the result, then you deny AI the capability to create art." OK and?
  - jnordwick 9y ago
    > then you deny AI the capability to create art. Yes. That's what is whole thing is about - AI cannot create art because it lacks a human component. A tighter question would be can animals create art? I don't know the answer to that one.
    - js8 9y ago
      > Yes. That's what is whole thing is about - AI cannot create art because it lacks a human component. What I mean by "deny the capability to create art" is that you decided that whatever the AI might have created in the future, and without even looking at it, it's not art. It's sort of an extreme position, I think.
sh33mp 9y ago
>But this runs into a problem - if you don't know that the piece was created by a machine, you might assume intent and judge it as an art. Does it stop being an art when you learn that there was no intent? What if you learn that about a human piece of art? I don't see this as that big of a problem? Something can be beautiful without being art, but art tends to elicit a different kind of discussion specifically because there is intent behind it. As a thought experiment, consider a particularly beautiful natural formation (like corals or intricately eroded rock). It can be beautiful without it being art. If someone then told me that it was actually sculpted by a person, then to me it's now art. I can ponder what the person was trying to express when they created it. If someone else then told me the previous person lied and it's really just a natural formation, then it's back to being not art. If we were able to detect "intent" in an algorithm (although that is a hairy discussion in and of itself - arguably we could consider objective functions intents, but in that case I defer to the individual's interpretation as to whether that's intent or just clean study of a mathematical process), then yes, it would become art.
- js8 9y ago
  You're right that we exclude "works of nature" from art, despite having objective artistic qualities (being beautiful, eliciting emotions, etc.). In that sense, art must be created by humans. The question then becomes - is the thing created by AI still considered to be created by human, or by nature? And based on this, we can then classify it as art or not.
  - AstralStorm 9y ago
    Mostly because nature presents little intent. This is also why fractals are not considered art. If an AI is able to present intent clearly and consistently (uhh, intentionally) then it might be able to produce art. So far, I haven't seen any purely AI work that meets this criteria. They can have style but lack the "story" quality of the art built on shared language, culture. Essentially grammar and semantics of given art form. Problem is similar to though harder than making AI really understand language. These system generally end at style which is like an ensemble average of syntax.

nitwit005 9y ago

Paintings aren't painted by humans, they're painted by paint brushes. Therefor, they are not art. That statement is ridiculous on the surface, but humans have always used tools and machines to produce art, which have gotten more and more sophisticated over time. No matter what machine is used, there's still a human designing the thing. There's no magical cutoff where you can say "This was not produced by a human". It's just that the degree of indirection has increased over time.