ARTifcial Intelligence

 I do not really know if I can fall under the label of being called the creative type, I don't think my artistic prowess is enough for me to be called that, and also the way I dress would never suggest that I have a creative inclination. I do enjoy coming up ideas and fleshing them out, or working with other people on theirs. It usually takes different forms, it could be cooking a meal, or doodling. or in this case blogging. As the human race, I can say it is instinctual for us to be  inventive. It could you coming up with your own idea, or following along instructions of someone else, whether it is a duplicate or something different, making stuff is in our nature. 

This phenom is so natural to humans, that whenever we see creativity in other places in nature we get a sense of kinship. When a video of an elephant painting comes up, it's no wonder there are a lot of views and it gets a lot of attention. I think there's just something in us that warms up inside us a voice that says, "Hey, look, this animal is doing a human action.", and we have the impression that the elephant was quite entertaining. Ever since I got acquainted with the Terminator franchise, the idea of robots and what they are capable of was planted in my head. The one capability of course, is that of robotic creativity. As it may seem to be an oxymoron, it is a reality that machines can make art on their own. Perhaps even calling it art may be deemed vulgar by some creatives. 

It rubs people the wrong way when computers start to generate art. This does not happen with the elephant with the paintbrush, earlier I mentioned that there is something that resounds in us, when we see human attributes in nature. There is a metallic taste in one's mouth when these attributes or something similar is portrayed by an azoic object. There is a sense of being put off, when we as organic beings start to have similarities with inorganic objects, because as the similarities increase the differences start to erode. Especially when it comes to art, can we really give the same recognition that we give  to an art school graduate, to artificial intelligence software that can take prompts and generate a product in minutes. 

Art is an expression, the artist can channel their pain into their work, messages of hope can be conveyed in brush strokes and stories can be passed down in song. The expression comes as a bubbling up from a source of inspiration and work, such can not be sources from a collection of ones and zeros. To appreciate art is also to appreciate the process behind the art. For a master violinist, years of practice can mean a difference of milimetres in precision of handling their instrument, this can not be perceived when looking at computer generated work. I have even had some suggestions to leave the writing of this blog to A.I, although this would result in the blog being more efficiently streamlined, this would be fraudulent on my behalf. Instead of expressing my thoughts and emotions, I would be feeding a prompt into a website and giving you the product of that. I honestly do not know where the fun in that would be, the struggle over come writers' block, and the bolt of inspiration that hits randomly would all mean nothing, if I decided to automate everything. 

Coming to the conclusion that A.I is completely detrimental to art would be too harsh of judgement. There's an illustration I came across whilst listening to a podcast. The invention of the camera, many thought that it would mean the end of painting as an industry. The camera came onto the scene in the nineteenth century, and still today modern art galleries have quite a number of portraits, and photography has evolved into an art in itself. Artificial intelligence, is a tool and with the right understanding and creativity, I believe that something beautiful can be born. We just have to wait and see how that might take shape.