Artificial art
In who is the artist I asked who gets the credit for art produced by software, the user or the programmer. It occurs to me that this a variation of an old question in artificial intelligence.
For example, I claim that a $5 calculator exhibits human-level intelligence. (If you don’t believe me, ask a chimp or a dolphin to multiply 537 by 823.) As human chauvinists, we are predisposed to believe certain things:
- There is something about “real” intelligence that requires a human brain.
- Anything that a machine can do, doesn’t qualify as “real” intelligence.
In the case of the calculator, we either deny that multiplication requires intelligence, or we locate the intelligence in the human who programmed the chip inside the calculator. Similarly, in the case of art generated by software, we can say that it is not “real” art, it is only a “simulation” of art. Alternatively, we can say the artist is the human who wrote the software or the human who operated it.
Instead of arguing over which adjective to use with which noun, let’s look at intelligence and art as verbs which take place in three areas:
- Subconscious human brains
- Conscious human brains
- Machines
In the case of artificial art, writing the software and using the software are conscious acts by different people. The software runs on a computer. Choosing one of dozens of generated images is an subconscious (or intuitive) human act. Trying to pin the “artist” label in one particular place misses the point. The art is the result of all these processes together.