The Rise of the Machines
Issue No. 18 of the Knowing Road
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and an upcoming Happy New Year to Everyone! With the unrelenting cold that is sweeping the United States in time for Christmas, I hope that everyone is staying warm and will enjoy this time of the year from a place of peace, joy and hope. This is the last issue of the year, and enjoyed writing it as I dived more into one of my interests, technology and its impact on all of us. It is clear that technology continues its march at a more rapid pace, and one can’t help but think through its implications. Art is one example where change is coming, specifically in the development of more advanced artificial intelligence known as generative AI. Hope you enjoy learning and even exploring this yourself. Be well and stay warm! —Stephen
“Art is when a human tells another human what it is to be human.” – Adrian Elmer
We all have experienced it. The moment when seeing or listening to a work of art. Perhaps it was the first time seeing Van Gogh’s sunflowers as though they were alive. Each petal defined by each stroke of the brush while each green leaf ragged but perfect in their imperfection. It was seeing the world differently through a different lens. A vibrant but uneven interpretation of reality from the imagination of someone who was attempting to express something deeper about our interactions with simplicity of a vase of flowers. Something more emotional than a photograph or classical still life. Artistic creativity at its best.
Art unlike other pursuits have been long been the territory of what it meant to be human. Art is an expression of our human experience told visually. At least that is what was our common understanding until recently.
Several weeks ago, OpenAI released its beta version, a new (and almost magical) way for everyone to create beautiful art.1 Known as DALL·E , the system is powered by artificial intelligence that can create realistic images and art from a description in natural language. One would just go to the site, create an account, and there you would be asked to write a description of something that you would like to create with the system. You can identify it as a painting, or certain artistic style (e.g. Cubism), a photograph, a medium (e.g. pencil drawing), and describe a scene in words. Here is an example that I used:
“An impressionist painting like Van Gogh of a vase of sunflowers.”
You would receive 4 different versions, and from there you would do certain variations or edits until you were happy with the result. Here is one of the results created by the AI:
Now it is certainly impressive, but there does seem to be something missing when compared to the actual real paintings painted by Van Gogh. For me, I see a similar style, but in the actual painting, the strokes seemed deeper, more intense, more emotive, more real…dare I say more human.
In thinking about this technological marvel (and who knows where it will advance in my lifetime), it does raise an interesting question of what is art and the role of human creativity and imagination. If art can be replicated by a server farm of computers trained on 100s of millions of images, identifying patterns and attributes to be cobbled together and displayed in response to a description embodied by a group of descriptive words, can we still say that art is relegated to only the realms of human thought and imagination?
Now take a look at this abstract painting, and ask yourself what do you see? What was the artist trying to convey to us?
Do you see a bird? Perhaps a bluebird? Well, the artist was supposedly inspired by a bluebird that flew in the room where she would sit and perched itself on her shoulder. The interesting fact is that the artist was not human at all, but was a gorilla named Koko. Koko would paint what she saw or what she experienced in her life, and one of those representations was this painting simply titled: “Bird.” From this example, we can conclude that humans are not the only species that can produce “art.” So if art is not exclusive to humans now that anonymous computers and very talented gorillas can do on their own, what is it?
I would argue that Art is not the act of visually creating a real life experience but it is the act of telling stories with nuance and emotion that move us and touch something beyond the physical world. It is the story of our internal struggles. It is the story of our heartbreak. It is the story of our triumphs. It is the story of our joy. It is the story of our awe of the world that surrounds us. These stories can be told visually (e.g. painting) or can be shared through words (e.g. poetry) or even presented with sound (e.g. music).
Art is a way for us to express ourselves and share our experiences with the world. It is the way in which we can bring the world closer together with each of us. It is a way to communicate with each other and express our emotions. Whether that experience is conveyed by holding a paintbrush or typing in a description in a computer, I would ask, does it really matter? In the end, art will always be more than the sum of its parts. It will always remain a human experience no matter the medium or method and as long as artists continue to create, stories will always be told with emotion, regardless of who is telling them.2 Eventually, with the rise of the machines, our humanness and how that shows up in our daily and professional lives will grow in greater importance in the future and those who embrace and cultivate that uniqueness will ultimately thrive. Continue to chop the wood and carry the water my friends. The Knowing Road continues for each of us.
QUICK TAKES:
MIT Researchers use AI with the hope to extract critical medical information from medical records for more personalized medicine.
Instead of medication, daily meditation may be just as good for the treatment of anxiety .
Researchers find that self gifting may alleviate stress during the holiday season.
RECOMMENDATION:
Spirited, a new modern twist on the old tale of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” starring Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds, is a great way to get yourself in the holiday festive mood, filled with music and dancing and laughs along the way. Just like Scrooge, Ryan Reynolds character is visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve, forcing him to re-evaluate his “bah-humbug” led life and if its possible to really change for the good. It’s heartwarming, even if predictable with a slight interesting twist, but as with Its A Wonderful Life, it is a much needed reminder of how precious our lives our, and to be grateful for all of it, even the not so happy moments. We are all shaped by our stories, and the sooner we face them, and question whether we want to continue with those that are no longer serving us, the better off and happier we will be. Spirited is being shown at your local theaters and also on Apple TV. “Good Afternoon!” : )
Thank you again for reading and sharing the Knowing Road. Until next time, be well.
It should be noted that other platforms have been released in addition to DALL-3, such as MidJourney and Stable Diffusion. OpenAI has also released its generative text platform known as ChatGPT that can write poetry, articles, essays, write software code, engage in natural conversation and other text related tasks with a simple prompt. The space of generative AI appears to be rapidly advancing and will likely disrupt many industries more than the art world.
Just to leave you with a parting emphasis, this last sentence was written by a machine.