The Artist in the Machine
The World of AI-Powered Creativity
Published on 10. November 2020
Book
Paperback/Softback
432 pages
978-0-262-53962-3 (ISBN)
Description
An authority on creativity introduces us to AI-powered computers that are creating art, literature, and music that may well surpass the creations of humans.Today's computers are composing music that sounds "more Bach than Bach," turning photographs into paintings in the style of Van Gogh's Starry Night, and even writing screenplays. But are computers truly creative-or are they merely tools to be used by musicians, artists, and writers? In this book, Arthur I. Miller takes us on a tour of creativity in the age of machines.
Miller, an authority on creativity, identifies the key factors essential to the creative process, from "the need for introspection" to "the ability to discover the key problem." He talks to people on the cutting edge of artificial intelligence, encountering computers that mimic the brain and machines that have defeated champions in chess, Jeopardy!, and Go. In the central part of the book, Miller explores the riches of computer-created art, introducing us to artists and computer scientists who have, among much else, unleashed an artificial neural network to create a nightmarish, multi-eyed dog-cat; taught AI to imagine; developed a robot that paints; created algorithms for poetry; and produced the world's first computer-composed musical, Beyond the Fence, staged by Android Lloyd Webber and friends.
But, Miller writes, in order to be truly creative, machines will need to step into the world. He probes the nature of consciousness and speaks to researchers trying to develop emotions and consciousness in computers. Miller argues that computers can already be as creative as humans-and someday will surpass us. But this is not a dystopian account; Miller celebrates the creative possibilities of artificial intelligence in art, music, and literature.
Miller, an authority on creativity, identifies the key factors essential to the creative process, from "the need for introspection" to "the ability to discover the key problem." He talks to people on the cutting edge of artificial intelligence, encountering computers that mimic the brain and machines that have defeated champions in chess, Jeopardy!, and Go. In the central part of the book, Miller explores the riches of computer-created art, introducing us to artists and computer scientists who have, among much else, unleashed an artificial neural network to create a nightmarish, multi-eyed dog-cat; taught AI to imagine; developed a robot that paints; created algorithms for poetry; and produced the world's first computer-composed musical, Beyond the Fence, staged by Android Lloyd Webber and friends.
But, Miller writes, in order to be truly creative, machines will need to step into the world. He probes the nature of consciousness and speaks to researchers trying to develop emotions and consciousness in computers. Miller argues that computers can already be as creative as humans-and someday will surpass us. But this is not a dystopian account; Miller celebrates the creative possibilities of artificial intelligence in art, music, and literature.
Reviews / Votes
"With this quite extraordinary book Arthur Miller has produced an essential, readable, and highly intelligent account of the manner in which machines can - and surely soon will - become involved in the process of creativity. In art, poetry, music, and thinking, computers are now teetering on the brink of true consciousness with implications both tantalizing and terrifying, as this necessary book so eloquently illustrates." - Simon Winchester, author of The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World"Arthur Miller is one of the world's most insightful thinkers about the intersection of art and science. In this profound book, he takes on a key question in the impending age of artificial intelligence: Can computers be creative? Readers will be fascinated by his analysis of the unexpected talents of computers and also the more fundamental issue of what creativity actually is. It's an important book for anyone who wants to understand the role we humans will play in a technologically driven future." - Walter Isaacson, Professor of History, Tulane University and author of Steve Jobs and Leonardo da Vinci
"Arthur I. Miller is widely acclaimed as a scholarly, insightful, and prolific thinker whose earlier books have illuminated the symbiosis between the arts and sciences. The Artist in the Machine addresses a hugely important new topic: Miller recounts many instances where artistic creativity is already being nourished by interaction with artificial intelligence - and speculates on the capabilities of more powerful machines. This fascinating book deserves wide readership." - Martin Rees, UK Astronomer Royal and author of On the Future: Prospects for Humanity
"Ever since Ada Lovelace's first speculations way back in 1843, thinkers have debated whether computers can display bona fide artistic creativity. Miller's masterly volume brings the controversy well into the 21st century. The Artist in the Machine is by far the most current, comprehensive, and candid treatment available today." - Dean K. Simonton, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Psychology, University of California, Davis, and author of The Genius Checklist: Nine Paradoxical Tips about How You Can Become a Creative Genius
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge (Massachusetts)
United States
Publishing group
MIT Press Ltd
Illustrations
32 COLOR ILLUS.
Dimensions
Height: 221 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 26 mm
Weight
554 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-262-53962-3 (9780262539623)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
10/2019
MIT Press
€28.50
Article not available at the moment
E-Book
10/2019
MIT Press
€27.49
Available for download
Person
Arthur I. Miller is Emeritus Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at University College London. He is the author of Colliding Worlds: How Cutting-Edge Science is Redefining Contemporary Art and other books including Einstein, Picasso: Space, Time, and the Beauty That Causes Havoc.
Content
Part I
UNDERSTANDING CREATIVITY
Chapter 1
What Makes us Creative?
What is Creativity?
Why Can't We All Make Discoveries Like Einstein, Write Music Like Bach or Transform the World of Art Like Picasso? What Makes These People Special?
Chapter 2
Seven Hallmarks of Creativity and Two Marks of Genius
1. The Need for Introspection
2. Know your Strengths
3. Focus, Persevere and Don't Be Afraid to Make Mistakes
4. Collaborate and Compete
5. Beg, Borrow or Steal Great Ideas
6. Thrive on Ambiguity
7. The Need for Experience and Suffering
The Two Marks of Genius
Intent, Imagination and Unpredictability
Chapter 3
Margaret Boden's Three Types of Creativity
Chapter 4
Unconscious Thought: The Key Ingredient
The Four Stages of Creativity
The Importance of Taking Time Off
Unconscious Thought and Computers
Chapter 5
The Birth of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
-6-
The First Inklings of Computer Creativity
Computers that Mimic the Brain
Chapter 6
Games Computers Play
Deep Blue Defeats Garry Kasparov
IBM Watson Becomes Jeopardy! Champion
AlphaGo Defeats the Reigning World Go Champion
Part II
PORTRAIT OF THE COMPUTER AS AN ARTIST
Chapter 1
DeepDream: How Alexander Mordvintsev Excavated the Computer's Hidden Layers
Mike Tyka Takes the Dream Deeper Chapter 2 Blaise Agueera y Arcas Brings Together Artists and Machine Intelligence Memo Akten Educates a Neural Network Chapter 3 What Came After DeepDream? Damien Henry and a Machine That Dreams a Landscape Mario Klingemann and His X degrees of Separation Angelo Semeraro's Recognition - Intertwining Past and Present
Leon Gatys' Style Transfer: Photography in 'the Style of'
Chapter 4
Ian Goodfellow's Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs): AI Learns to Imagine
Mike Tyka's Portraits of Imaginary People
Refik Anadol Creates a Dreaming Archive
Theresa Reimann-Dubbers' AI looks at the Messiah
Jake Elwes' Dreams of Latent Space
Chapter 5
Phillip Isola's Pix2Pix - Filling in the Picture
Mario Klingemann Changes Faces With Pix2Pix
Anna Ridler's Fall of the House of Usher
Chapter 6
Jun-Yan Zhu's Cycle GAN Turns Horses into Zebras
-7-
Mario Klingemann Plays with CycleGAN
Chapter 7
Ahmed Elgammal's Creative Adversarial Networks (CAN)
Chapter 8
'But is it Art?' GANs enter the art market
Chapter 9
Simon Colton's The Painting Fool
Chapter 10
Hod Lipson and Patrick Tresset's Artist Robots
PART III
MACHINES THAT MAKE MUSIC: PUTTING THE 'RHYTHM' INTO 'ALGORITHM'
Chapter 1
Project Magenta Creates AI's First Tune
Chapter 2
From WaveNet and NSynth to COCO NET: Adventures in Music Making
WaveNet: From Voice to Music
NSynth - Creating Sounds Never Heard Before
COCO NET: Filling in the Gaps
Chapter 3
Francois Pachet and his Computers that Improvise and Compose Songs
The Flow Machine
Chapter 4
Gil Weinberg and Mason Bretan and their Robot Jazz Band Chapter 5
David Cope makes Music that is 'more Bach than Bach'
Chapter 6
The Drunken Pint and Other Folk Music Composed by Bob Sturm and Oded Ben-Tal's AI
Chapter 7
Rebecca Fiebrink uses Movement to Generate Sound
Chapter 8
Marwaread Mary Farbood Sketches Music
-8-
Chapter 9
Eduardo Miranda and his Improvising Slime Mould
Part IV
ONCE UPON A TIME: COMPUTERS THAT TELL STORIES
Chapter 1
The Pinocchio Effect
Chapter 2
The Final Frontier: Computers with a Sense of Humour
Chapter 3
AI and Poetry
Pablo Gervas and his Poetic Algorithms
Chapter 4
Rafael Perez y Perez and the Problems of Creating Rounded Stories
Chapter 5
Nick Montfort Makes Poetry With Pi
Chapter 6
Allison Parrish Sends Probes into Semantic Space
Chapter 7
Ross Goodwin and the First AI Scripted Movie
Chapter 8
Sarah Harmon Uses AI to Create Illuminating Metaphors
Chapter 9
Tony Veale and His Metaphor and Story-Generating Programmes
Chapter 10
Hannah Davis Turns Words into Music
Chapter 11
Simon Colton's Poetic Fool
Part V
THE WORLD'S FIRST COMPUTER-COMPOSED MUSICAL: BEYOND THE FENCE, STAGED BY ANDROID LLOYD WEBBER AND FRIENDS
PART VI
-9-
CAN COMPUTERS BE CREATIVE?
Chapter 1
A Glimpse of the Future?
Creativity in Humans and Machines
Attempts to Pin Down Creativity
Chapter 2
What Goes on in the Computer's Brain?
Jason Yosinski and the Puzzle of What Machines See
Mark Riedl on Teaching Neural Networks to Communicate
Chapter 3
What Drives Creativity?
Margaret Boden and Computer Creativity
Chapter 4
Evaluating Creativity in Computers
Geraint Wiggins and the Mind's Chorus
Graeme Ritchie's Fourteen Criteria for Measuring the Creativity of an Algorithm
Anna Jordanous's Fourteen Components of Creativity
Chapter 5
Computers With Feelings
Rosalind Picard on Developing Machines that Feel
Machines Gaining Experience of the World
Machines that Suffer
Chapter 6
The Question of Consciousness
John Searle's Chinese Room and the Question of whether Computers can actually Think
Reducing Consciousness to the Sum of its Parts
Chapter 7
Michael Graziano: Developing Conscious Computers
Awareness and Attention
Self-Awareness, Introspection and Perseverance in Computers
Giving Computers Consciousness
Chapter 8
Two Dissenting Voices
Douglas Hofstadter and the Horrors of a Future Controlled by Creative Machines
-10-
Pat Langley and Machines that Work More like People
Chapter 9
Can We Apply the Hallmarks of Creativity to Computers?
The Need to Know Your Strengths
The Need to Beg, Borrow or Steal Great Ideas; and the Need for Collaboration and Competition
The Need to Focus and not be Afraid to Make Mistakes
The Need to Thrive on Ambiguity and the Need for Experience and Suffering
The Ability to Discover the Key Problem and to Spot Connections
Chapter 10
The Future
Where We Are Now
Where We Are Going
And Into the Future ...
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ILLUSTRATION CREDITS
ENDNOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
UNDERSTANDING CREATIVITY
Chapter 1
What Makes us Creative?
What is Creativity?
Why Can't We All Make Discoveries Like Einstein, Write Music Like Bach or Transform the World of Art Like Picasso? What Makes These People Special?
Chapter 2
Seven Hallmarks of Creativity and Two Marks of Genius
1. The Need for Introspection
2. Know your Strengths
3. Focus, Persevere and Don't Be Afraid to Make Mistakes
4. Collaborate and Compete
5. Beg, Borrow or Steal Great Ideas
6. Thrive on Ambiguity
7. The Need for Experience and Suffering
The Two Marks of Genius
Intent, Imagination and Unpredictability
Chapter 3
Margaret Boden's Three Types of Creativity
Chapter 4
Unconscious Thought: The Key Ingredient
The Four Stages of Creativity
The Importance of Taking Time Off
Unconscious Thought and Computers
Chapter 5
The Birth of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
-6-
The First Inklings of Computer Creativity
Computers that Mimic the Brain
Chapter 6
Games Computers Play
Deep Blue Defeats Garry Kasparov
IBM Watson Becomes Jeopardy! Champion
AlphaGo Defeats the Reigning World Go Champion
Part II
PORTRAIT OF THE COMPUTER AS AN ARTIST
Chapter 1
DeepDream: How Alexander Mordvintsev Excavated the Computer's Hidden Layers
Mike Tyka Takes the Dream Deeper Chapter 2 Blaise Agueera y Arcas Brings Together Artists and Machine Intelligence Memo Akten Educates a Neural Network Chapter 3 What Came After DeepDream? Damien Henry and a Machine That Dreams a Landscape Mario Klingemann and His X degrees of Separation Angelo Semeraro's Recognition - Intertwining Past and Present
Leon Gatys' Style Transfer: Photography in 'the Style of'
Chapter 4
Ian Goodfellow's Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs): AI Learns to Imagine
Mike Tyka's Portraits of Imaginary People
Refik Anadol Creates a Dreaming Archive
Theresa Reimann-Dubbers' AI looks at the Messiah
Jake Elwes' Dreams of Latent Space
Chapter 5
Phillip Isola's Pix2Pix - Filling in the Picture
Mario Klingemann Changes Faces With Pix2Pix
Anna Ridler's Fall of the House of Usher
Chapter 6
Jun-Yan Zhu's Cycle GAN Turns Horses into Zebras
-7-
Mario Klingemann Plays with CycleGAN
Chapter 7
Ahmed Elgammal's Creative Adversarial Networks (CAN)
Chapter 8
'But is it Art?' GANs enter the art market
Chapter 9
Simon Colton's The Painting Fool
Chapter 10
Hod Lipson and Patrick Tresset's Artist Robots
PART III
MACHINES THAT MAKE MUSIC: PUTTING THE 'RHYTHM' INTO 'ALGORITHM'
Chapter 1
Project Magenta Creates AI's First Tune
Chapter 2
From WaveNet and NSynth to COCO NET: Adventures in Music Making
WaveNet: From Voice to Music
NSynth - Creating Sounds Never Heard Before
COCO NET: Filling in the Gaps
Chapter 3
Francois Pachet and his Computers that Improvise and Compose Songs
The Flow Machine
Chapter 4
Gil Weinberg and Mason Bretan and their Robot Jazz Band Chapter 5
David Cope makes Music that is 'more Bach than Bach'
Chapter 6
The Drunken Pint and Other Folk Music Composed by Bob Sturm and Oded Ben-Tal's AI
Chapter 7
Rebecca Fiebrink uses Movement to Generate Sound
Chapter 8
Marwaread Mary Farbood Sketches Music
-8-
Chapter 9
Eduardo Miranda and his Improvising Slime Mould
Part IV
ONCE UPON A TIME: COMPUTERS THAT TELL STORIES
Chapter 1
The Pinocchio Effect
Chapter 2
The Final Frontier: Computers with a Sense of Humour
Chapter 3
AI and Poetry
Pablo Gervas and his Poetic Algorithms
Chapter 4
Rafael Perez y Perez and the Problems of Creating Rounded Stories
Chapter 5
Nick Montfort Makes Poetry With Pi
Chapter 6
Allison Parrish Sends Probes into Semantic Space
Chapter 7
Ross Goodwin and the First AI Scripted Movie
Chapter 8
Sarah Harmon Uses AI to Create Illuminating Metaphors
Chapter 9
Tony Veale and His Metaphor and Story-Generating Programmes
Chapter 10
Hannah Davis Turns Words into Music
Chapter 11
Simon Colton's Poetic Fool
Part V
THE WORLD'S FIRST COMPUTER-COMPOSED MUSICAL: BEYOND THE FENCE, STAGED BY ANDROID LLOYD WEBBER AND FRIENDS
PART VI
-9-
CAN COMPUTERS BE CREATIVE?
Chapter 1
A Glimpse of the Future?
Creativity in Humans and Machines
Attempts to Pin Down Creativity
Chapter 2
What Goes on in the Computer's Brain?
Jason Yosinski and the Puzzle of What Machines See
Mark Riedl on Teaching Neural Networks to Communicate
Chapter 3
What Drives Creativity?
Margaret Boden and Computer Creativity
Chapter 4
Evaluating Creativity in Computers
Geraint Wiggins and the Mind's Chorus
Graeme Ritchie's Fourteen Criteria for Measuring the Creativity of an Algorithm
Anna Jordanous's Fourteen Components of Creativity
Chapter 5
Computers With Feelings
Rosalind Picard on Developing Machines that Feel
Machines Gaining Experience of the World
Machines that Suffer
Chapter 6
The Question of Consciousness
John Searle's Chinese Room and the Question of whether Computers can actually Think
Reducing Consciousness to the Sum of its Parts
Chapter 7
Michael Graziano: Developing Conscious Computers
Awareness and Attention
Self-Awareness, Introspection and Perseverance in Computers
Giving Computers Consciousness
Chapter 8
Two Dissenting Voices
Douglas Hofstadter and the Horrors of a Future Controlled by Creative Machines
-10-
Pat Langley and Machines that Work More like People
Chapter 9
Can We Apply the Hallmarks of Creativity to Computers?
The Need to Know Your Strengths
The Need to Beg, Borrow or Steal Great Ideas; and the Need for Collaboration and Competition
The Need to Focus and not be Afraid to Make Mistakes
The Need to Thrive on Ambiguity and the Need for Experience and Suffering
The Ability to Discover the Key Problem and to Spot Connections
Chapter 10
The Future
Where We Are Now
Where We Are Going
And Into the Future ...
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ILLUSTRATION CREDITS
ENDNOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX