AI, Automation, Creativity, Cognitive Labor (original) (raw)

A Note on AI and the Ideology of Creativity

Academia Letters, 2021

A Note on AI and the Ideology of Creativity michael betancourt, Savannah College of Art and Design Fear of a "robot revolution" was born with the word 'robot' itself 1 ; concern that machinery will replace humanity are as old as the industrial revolution. 2 The impacts and potentials of AI on art bring this history into focus precisely because art is an expression of human culture and society, not merely a technical system. 3 However, the problems for artistic action and intent posed by the autonomous operations of machinery are not new-these same issues also emerged with the development of photography in the 1800s 4-and the contemporary "freedom" in art is a product of how the art world accommodated earlier technical change. 5 Digital technology instrumentalizes this "freedom," 6 making the questions raised by AI and the generative processes of computers 7 assume a familiar valence, apparent in the discomfiting realization that Jorge Luis Borges's story "Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote" 8 is no longer fiction. Borges's proposition that a contemporary author could recreate Cervantes's Don Quixote seems an absurdity-no human author could study Cervantes and arrive at a reproduction of the same work, Don Quixote, independently-yet that is precisely what machine learning has already accomplished for Rembrandt van Rijn: AI has created a 'new' work, The

Artificial intelligence (A.I.) and Art

Artificial intelligence (A.I.) and Art, 2022

Technosphere is characterized by a switch from nature into a new, machine operated, realm of technology. What humanity is facing in its modernity is the transition from a human to a posthuman state of rule which is run by artificial intelligence (A.I.) and performed by artificial life (A.L.). In his work “The Inhuman”, Jean-Francois Lyotard reflects on the dominance of a new logic of techno-science over mankind. That notion binds the idea of the end of mankind as we know it. Technology is not neutral, it’s not simply a way of transmitting information in the service of mankind, it’s more than that, technology forms its new own being and with it a new technological language. Contemporary society is no longer determined by the concept of the spirit, or what Walter Benjamin calls “aura”, but rather by the logic of techno-science in its total rule over the entire space and time of the world. With the technologies of the new digital era a new question arises in the field of philosophy of art which until their appearance was considered as sublime. Artificial intelligence (A.I.) and artificial life (A.L.), through the connection of biotechnology and computing machines, appear as a new immaterial creation of life. Their space of action is virtual space, their time of action is instantaneous

AI creativity and demystification

2018

This article is written in the context of contemporary art and technology, in confluence with my profession as a technologist, and being an active artist, coming from a crafts-based practice, and recently enrolled at Chelsea College of Arts in a more progressive discourse. The presented meditation primarily consists of personal artistic and technological encounters. It is an attempt to gather my thoughts on the notion of AI creativity in the backdrop of commercialism. The 25th of October 2018, an AI (artificial intelligence) generated 'painting' was sold for $432.500 at Christie’s. For a long period a commercial with the heading; ‘A Higher Intelligence with AI’ was present in the underground of Copenhagen. We are constantly exposed to the idea, that AI has exceeded human potential, in institutions, in published media, and public spaces. This article proposes to take a step back and take a closer look at the algorithms, the machines and the AI's ability to create, with the question; what is creativity then, and where does it belong, however, before we do so, let us start by asking; what is creativity, what is AI, and moreover, how can we study these terms in the context of contemporary art with other fields of study with the goal to establish a comprehensive overview. Comment to readers (2020): Be aware that the genealogy of the term creativity presented in this article is eurocentric and therefore distorted and untrue. In the article How a Machine Learns and Fails: A Grammar of Error for Artificial Intelligence, Matteo Pasquinelli discusses the terminology and mechanisms of AI, and proposes to discuss the notion of AI-generated art as 'statistical art'.

"Shitty Automation": Art, Artificial Intelligence, Humans in the Loop

Media-N, 2020

This essay adapts the concept of "shitty automation," developed by Brian Merchant to name frustrating experiences with automated systems, to describe how human input-our labor, bodies, biases, prejudices, and desires-remains invisibly present in automated systems. Tracing a lineage of automation from Jacques de Vaucanson's Canard Digérateur (1739) and Wolfgang von Kempelen's mechanical Turk (1770) to contemporary artist Trevor Paglen, who uses Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) to create artworks, this essay considers how humans "stay in the loop" in automation and what "shitty automation" reveals about human culture, our desires, and the evolution of AI.

The Art of Artificial Intelligence: Philosophical Keywords

Cambridge Scholars (https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-0364-1585-3), 2024

What is artificial intelligence to us today? This book tackles this question from a somewhat unique perspective, that of art. The starting hypothesis is that art can provide an example of how we can engage with artificial intelligence without being subjugated by it. The Art of Artificial Intelligence: Philosophical Keywords guides the reader through a theoretical journey that begins, each time, with a particular work of art: visual artworks, but also literary texts and theatrical performances. Each chapter is anchored by a philosophical keyword: "work," "author," "time," "memory," "human." What meanings do these words take on in light of these new practices? The book is aimed at a broad audience, including anyone who feels the need to reflect on these new questions. It will also be an essential resource for students and university faculty in various disciplines, from philosophy to media studies, from art history to visual culture.

The 'Social Paradigm' of Automation

Digitalisierung der Arbeitswelten, 2024

The lineage of industrialisation that began in the eighteenth century continues with the development of artificial intelligence (AI). It reveals a heuristic apparent in/as the social paradigm that defines labour as interchangeable with the machinery it operates. Placing AI into a socio-cultural context with the industrial revolution reveals the on-going impacts of the social disparities created by capitalist production in the nineteenth century that were justified by reifying Immanuel Kant’s Enlightenment philosophy concerning judgement (human agency) continue to shape contemporary developments. Examining this philosophical justification and its influence illuminates a social paradigm focused on the replacement of labour with automation. This interdisciplinary approach links moral and aesthetic claims to the questions of labour to reveal a heuristic in which workers were cast as the “intellectual organs” of the machine, anticipating “machine learning” and other forms of digital automation that replace intelligent labour. This cultural foundation developes from the continuity of technological changes that defined each stage of industrialisation through disparate social, cultural and aesthetic claims about machinery and the social significance of the industrial factory. The regimentation of labour by industrialization concerned nineteenth century artists and critics whose ideas established an archetype whose structural effects shape and constrain the contemporary implementation of automation and AI.

The Automation of Automating Automation: Automation in the AI Industry

2019

First, I'm going to talk about why machine learning is a different type of automation from previous forms. Then I will show how the labour of producing machine learning tech is being automated and briefly discuss the relations of workers towards it. I will argue that AutoML complicates critical theorizations of automation from two Marxian schools of thought: labour process theory and post-operaismo. Finally, I will suggest that AutoML indicates the need for a conceptual shift from automation to autonomization.

(Un)creative Artificial Intelligence: A Critique of 'Artificial Art'

2020

I The arguments that follow are situated within a larger project entitled "Critique of Algorithmic Rationality." That project, drawing deliberately from Immanuel Kant, is an attempt to move beyond the technological, social or cultural critiques of digital rationalities usually found in social, media and cultural theories and take a critical look at the validity of algorithmic approaches. It explores the limitations of the performance and purview of algorithmic schematics in the realm of art and creativity.