As an occasional practicing generative artist, I completely agree with the gist of this article, but I think it could use more perspective and historical contex

As an occasional practicing generative artist, I completely agree with the gist of this article, but I think it could use more perspective and historical context, both from the science and from the art points of view. This topic has been discussed and debated by many intelligent people for a long time. There is a faction of generative artists that make a name for themselves selling randomness as some kind of mystical, magical key to surprise and/or meaning in their art. Sometimes it’s anthropomorphic, and sometimes it broaches the debate over free will. And even if the art is boring, and even if the story is wrong, there might be some value in the narrative… Randomness as a concept is the color gray. It statistically averages to the middle. Randomness is a tool, it has value as a tool, but like any tool it must be controlled in order to make art out of it, especially to make something that doesn’t feel like mushy gray. Randomness is completely uncreative by itself, but certainly can be used to both mechanically add variety, and can be used to guide exploration of a parameter space and take the artist somewhere they might not have tried on their own.