26 February 2010
Trialogues: Artificial Intelligence
Posted by Andrew Garcia under: Technology .
A conversation held on Facebook with regard to the nature of Artificial Intelligence. For reference read this article:
However, I do think that these tunes would fit in just fine in a modern artsy-fartsy movie, people love minimalism in music these days (IMNSHO, this is very unfortunate). And having composition machines just reminds me of 1984.
in the end though, the music requires a listener, and as long as we make machines, we will make them for our listening preferences. The very fact … that this inventor has had to incorporate ideas and archetypes like ‘tension’, ‘release’, ‘antecedent’, and ‘conclusion’ etc shows that artificial intelligence will always be slave to mankind’s ineffable, irrational preferences. in my opinion these kind of archetypes are what creates holistic beauty in a composition, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, something I have also studied intensely as an architect.
The second iteration (again, IMHO) is what I consider to be “true” AI. That is: real intelligence that happens to be artificial. And by virtue of its etymology, this would be an AI manifest in the contexts we dream of- vis-a-vis Science Fiction, an intellect with every conceivable complexity to match our own, that happens to be created (literally artificial means “man made”).
So on the one hand it is a realistic notion (for my mind) that a true AI could be regarded as sentient enough to produce beautiful, original works that could be comparable to Beethoven, Alex Grey, Cezanne, etc.…
But I digress…
And on the other hand I agree completely that the first iteration of AI that I describe (which is what we are considering from the article) is subject to the inherent flaws that we build into it- our limits, our rules, et al. And our capacity to describe human intellect, creativity and novelty in programming language (adequately) is the blocking force, the limiting factor that establishes Beethoven as a more advanced creative force with regard to this primitive AI’s entelechy.
To sum up, I believe in possibilities.
But I really do think it’s possible for human creation to give way to a transcendent intelligence that supercedes all human paradigms. I think that addresses what you’re getting at anyway given the anthropocentric paradigm that dominates R&D.
Whether that means we may one day be the inventors of an AI that is more intelligent, more ambitious, more creative, more emotional and more alive than ourselves…or whether it means we simply rebirth ourselves into a transcendent form via genetic alterations, cyborg technology, or spontaneous large-scale nirvana remains to be seen. I guess in that regard the concept of AI is too primitive to describe what may transpire when we are capable of developing such things (if at all).…
Either way this is great conversation that I should put up in my blog at www.becomingcyborg.com
We will, without any doubt in my mind, continue to work for the creation of machines _in our own image_ — not necessarily physically biped as much as based on whatever understanding of the human brain is most current. This is not necessarily because the brain is the most fitting model to use, but it’s because it’s the best/only thing we’ve got.
But I feel that if we ever successfully make a machine that is capable of observing and weighting the relevance of the world around it, it will be totally unfathomable to us. It would experience the universe in a foreign way – how would, for example, a dolphin describe swimming? How would a lion describe stalking prey in the savanna? How would a computer describe moving about the ether?
