“Arthur Miller is one of the world’s most insightful thinkers about the intersection of art and science.” – Walter Isaac
“…the questions that Miller pursues in his book are some of the most exciting ones you can ask about artificial intelligence today.” – New Scientist
We live in a world where Artificial Intelligence is able to make music, create paintings, write screenplays, translate languages, and drive cars – feats we once thought only humans were capable of accomplishing. In The Artist in the Machine¸ Arthur Miller explores the important question of whether computers are truly creative or whether they are merely tools. He also explores the upside of AI: its cultural side, what its creativity holds in story and shows how creativity can amaze, inspire, and open new vistas for the human imagination.
Can machines write good jazz music? Can computers create art that is better (subjectively) than da Vinci or Dali? More importantly, should the art that machines create even be measured in this way? Will computers eventually produce works of art unlike that of any human? Should they be judged on their own merits, not tied to an increasingly redundant human comparison? These are some of the questions Miller explores in his book.
Miller starts by trying to come to grips with what we mean by creativity. He sees it as the production of new knowledge from already existing knowledge, accomplished by problem-solving. This can be applied equally to the brain as an information-processing system and to the computer. This definition of creativity is useful because it takes into account both the final product and the process of producing it. He also expands on the hallmarks of creativity, the marks of genius, and the role of the imagination and unconscious thought with respect to historical figures such as Einstein, Bach, and Picasso.
Following this preamble on the nature and role of creativity, Miller sets the stage for the emergence of Artificial Intelligence in the 20th century and how everything changed dramatically in the 21st century with the emergence of bigger data, cheaper computation, and deeper algorithms.
In the chapter, Games Computers Play, Miller recounts how Deep Blue defeated Gary Kasparov at Chess, how IBM Watson beat the best human contestants at the game of Jeopardy! And how AlphaGo defeated the reigning human World Go champion.
This is familiar stuff to most people. Where it gets really fascinating is when Miller starts to elaborate on the development of neural networks and deep learning that for the first time to machines making art and music. Crucial for this to happen was the development of the invention that would redefine the frontier of machine learning: Generative Adversarial Networks (GANS) – a way of training the computer to create realistic images all by themselves.
Users of GAN proclaim themselves pioneers of GAN-ism and take as their motto, “Creativity isn’t just for humans”. These are conceptual artists whose goal is to democratise GAN and legitimise AI-produced art.
Miller’s latest book, is filled with fascinating examples of how A.i. is able to create new forms of art in various styles. Through interviews with programmers, scientists, engineers, and artists, we learn that computers can be creative and have volition. Just as the invention of photography drove adventurous artists to invent impressionism, so too will future AI systems push the art world to invent new forms of art.
Artist in the Machine is a refreshing antidote to the doom and gloom about artificial intelligence that pervades much of mainstream discourse. The key takeaway is that humans and machines will merge and work symbiotically to create astonishing new works of art and music the likes of which we have never seen before and cannot begin to imagine from our contemporary vantage point.
