RE: Can AI Create Art?

[jaki01]

Aren't we a part of nature?

I was thinking about that fact, too, but then thought your point is not being part of nature but needing to have a conscious to create art... And concerning this condition I am not so sure to agree.

It is a very complex topic, but I have my doubts that our brain really works so different from what AI is doing. If interested, you might read this interview with DeepSeek about AI, intelligence and conscious.

Quite some time ago I had written another very long post about AI, but it's available in German only (you might translate it with AI though).

Comments

[agmoore]

I never used the word consciousness. That's a separate thing. There is no agreement on consciousness. It's even gone to court in the U.S....the challenge was do apes' have consciousness and as such do they have rights. I can't argue that. Too complicated. My position is that a machine may think, may act, may produce, but I'm not interested in knowing a machine. I'm interested in knowing humans. Art is about communication between humans.

Perhaps I'm influenced a bit by having had a severely disabled brother. Nobody knew what he was thinking. But he had as much a self as anyone. What was the state of his consciousness? I don't know. But he definitely had a self, one that was much loved. I could not love a machine, no matter how brilliantly it performs, because it has no self.

What I want from art, is to know the human behind it. When I look at the Sistine Chapel, I wonder at the human being, the spark of genius that created the masterpiece.

[jaki01]

It's even gone to court in the U.S....the challenge was do apes' have consciousness...

Of course apes are having consciousness. :)

Again: I am not so sure what makes a "self"? A human brain consists of, in and of themselves, ridiculously stupid over 80 billion neurons, through which an ion flow travels. So if we say an AI can't have a 'self' because it's only the connection of lots of stupid processors, I doubt that has to be true forever... :-)

[agmoore]

Hi @jaki01

This idea of self has been addressed by people far smarter than I am. I bring up the apes because of a 2013 lawsuit filed in New York (USA) on behalf of two chimpanzees. The lawyers were seeking the status of personhood for the apes so that these apes could be given rights and therefore their freedom, or at least the right to have decent living conditions. The lawyers lost their case and the chimps died alone and in miserable conditions. You can read about it here, in the Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/09/chimpanzees-do-not-have-same-legal-rights-as-humans-us-appeals-court-rules

While the lawyers were suing to have the chimps granted the status of personhood, this term has been used interchangeably and vaguely with others such as self, awareness and consciousness. Here's an excerpt from Plato.Standford.edu:https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/

Personal Identity
First published Tue Aug 20, 2002; substantive revision Fri Jun 30, 2023

Personal identity deals with philosophical questions that arise about ourselves by virtue of our being people (or as lawyers and philosophers like to say, persons). This contrasts with questions about ourselves that arise by virtue of our being living things, conscious beings, moral agents, or material objects. Many of these questions occur to nearly all of us now and again: What am I? When did I begin? What will happen to me when I die? Others are more abstruse. They have been discussed since the origins of Western philosophy, and most major figures have had something to say about them. (There is also a rich but challenging literature on the topic in Eastern philosophy: see the entry Mind in Indian Buddhist Philosophy.)

The topic is sometimes discussed under the problematic term self. This term is sometimes synonymous with ‘person’, but often means something different: a sort of unchanging, immaterial subject of consciousness, for instance (as in the phrase ‘the myth of the self’). It is often used without any clear meaning and will be avoided here.

After surveying the main questions of personal identity, the entry will focus on our persistence through time.

I'm taking the position that machines, as of now, do not have a self. Perhaps that is a position that science and philosophy will one day challenge, but, as you say, right now, that is the case. I do know one thing: a machine may determine the best trajectory for a rocket, or the best diagnosis for a disease, but I sure don't want to marry a machine :))

Thanks for engaging. An interesting discussion.

[jaki01]

I sure don't want to marry a machine :))

Maybe the machine also wouldn't want to marry you, too? Hehe, just kidding. :-)

Concerning the question about the 'self', the mirror self-recognition test (MSR) is also rather interesting in my opinion.

[agmoore]

That is a fascinating blog...