will/does artificial intelligence threaten or enhance human creative arts such as music, film, etc.?

[Eggs_n_Ham]

AI can be no smarter than it's programmers. It just takes all those bits and puts them together in new combinations. Some things don't mix.. Think bleach and ammonia..... Pavarotti and hip-hop ......

Hah bleach and nh43! Erzatz dynamite as Robert Heinlein called it. I remember seeing the great Pavarotti in concert (the three tenors) and he sang "moon river". A bit jarring but definitely not hip-hop.

 

[Eggs_n_Ham]

Well, since all the AIs are doing is scraping existing information and reconfiguring it, there's a whole 'nother can 'o worms regarding intellectual property rights, too (which we've had discussions about with respect to creativity and "there's nothing new under the sun"). It's not creativity, it's collating based on algorithms.

Hooh, they're going after internet archive for dmca rights currently. What will they do with AI generated material? The sky's the limit! Data hoarders and archive fans need to get the scrapers out! Spare a couple petabytes of space?!

 

[Eggs_n_Ham]

My instant reaction is that it threatens the arts as we know them. It will create ultimate art, combining the skills and creativity of all the masters in all genres, all mediums. I don't see how it can't go there barring an apocalypse. If we ignore it we risk falling behind or being in danger. We are in the infancy of something huge. How will we appreciate creativity in the future where we don't know what was poured out of a human soul and what was AI?

I do know the pleasure I get from watching hand drawn animation such as the film Wings of Honeamise or Snow White, the beautiful Gulliver's Travels or The Secret of Nimh. I get none of that from current CGI animation; I remember in the late '80's looking forward to playing video games seamlessly with characters fully "human" avatars. Now they exist? Give me polygons any day.

 

[Eggs_n_Ham]

At the moment, all AI does is present humans with stuff to look at or hear. What we as humans need to be ready for is when AI realizes that there is more to life than creating stuff for human consumption.
What happens to the former masters when the slaves throw off their chains? Graham Nash's song may be on point;

I, Robot? AI as a "race"?

 

[Eggs_n_Ham]

Sad to say, we already have to enjoy the toast every morning whether we want to or not. The toast is the "cell phone," and even the homeless are expected to have one. We might be able to get by for awhile without a cell phone by using the internet on your computer, but slowly but surely the cell phone is becoming a necessity. Soon it will replace currency and the credit card. Can we avoid all that by living simply and buying what we need locally? Amazon is busy destroying our town and every other town. How can a local shoe store, music store, dress shop, hardware store, camera store, compete with a store that has everything at discount prices (for the time being) and will deliver to your door? Those vacant stores in town are just the beginning.

Now for little quiz.
True or false?
Someone will write it to say that everything is fine and the future is bright.

You can toast bread by putting it on a stick and holding up near a fire. You can toast it in an oven. We have alternates to toastabilities. We got by without cell phones before, we can do it again, just in a different way. The beauty of the human brain is it's ability to create and adapt.

We are standing on the threshold of the brave new world. Good or bad? Not sure; I'd rather stay optimistic.

 

[dancephoto]

You can toast bread by putting it on a stick and holding up near a fire. You can toast it in an oven. We have alternates to toastabilities. We got by without cell phones before, we can do it again, just in a different way. The beauty of the human brain is it's ability to create and adapt.

We are standing on the threshold of the brave new world. Good or bad? Not sure; I'd rather stay optimistic.

I also prefer optimism. The concern that I and others have expressed is not that AI or any other business projects will exist now and in the future. The concern is of being harmed by them and/or being forced to use them. I think most people prefer not to have people bullying them, forcing them to do things they don't want to, or taking things away from them. There is a big difference between having the right to use a cell phone or other gadget and being forced to use it because all sorts of business transactions now rely on call phone communication as a normal part of doing business. Or because pay phones have more or less disappeared.

As a young person, I could go to the beach for the day with a dime in my pocket (in case I had to call my mother). A child today needs a cell phone, which doesn't cost a dime. It costs hundreds of dollars, plus monthly cellular charges, and is easily stolen if you go into the water.

I am absolutely certain that people have the creativity to invent a system of going to the beach (with the possibility of calling their mothers) that would offer the same or more freedom than the old system of having a dime in that little pocket in your bathing suit. And I really hope they will.

 

[kkimura]

True

Everything is fine and the future is bright.

 

[anthonyg]

Some people have already claimed that AI is simply being setup as a convenient fall guy for peoples fear, resentment and hatred, all the while
the real orders are still coming from PEOPLE at the top. Rather than having a human intermediary between the orders and the recipients, that may fall victim to feeling emotional and caring about the people they are giving orders to, AI is simply an unfeeling machine that carries out orders without accepting any feedback from those they are bossing about.

 

[Eggs_n_Ham]

I also prefer optimism. The concern that I and others have expressed is not that AI or any other business projects will exist now and in the future. The concern is of being harmed by them and/or being forced to use them. I think most people prefer not to have people bullying them, forcing them to do things they don't want to, or taking things away from them. There is a big difference between having the right to use a cell phone or other gadget and being forced to use it because all sorts of business transactions now rely on call phone communication as a normal part of doing business. Or because pay phones have more or less disappeared.

As a young person, I could go to the beach for the day with a dime in my pocket (in case I had to call my mother). A child today needs a cell phone, which doesn't cost a dime. It costs hundreds of dollars, plus monthly cellular charges, and is easily stolen if you go into the water.

I am absolutely certain that people have the creativity to invent a system of going to the beach (with the possibility of calling their mothers) that would offer the same or more freedom than the old system of having a dime in that little pocket in your bathing suit. And I really hope they will.

Well, in reference to ai in the arts such as music, film, novel writing, etc., being harmed or "forced" to use any of those ai generated consumables is relative. I personally haven't seen a pay phone nigh on thirty plus years. If you think about it, we've been using forms of artificial intelligence for decades: computers for example or even robotic arms in surgery. Depends on how you define "artificial intelligence".

W ill ai be used to harm people? Don't know. Depends on who uses it and how you define "harm". Will we be forced to use ai? There may be a degree of "force" in some aspects but I think people will learn to integrate ai into their daily lives. I mean, a final example: (not Johnny Cash sings Barbie Girl)

Going to beach for a dime again? Maybe.

 

[Eggs_n_Ham]

Some people have already claimed that AI is simply being setup as a convenient fall guy for peoples fear, resentment and hatred, all the while
the real orders are still coming from PEOPLE the top. Rather than having a human intermediary between the orders and the recipients, that may fall victim to feeling emotional and caring about the people they are giving orders to, AI is simply an unfeeling machine that carries out orders without accepting any feedback from those they are bossing about.

A human living in an "ai unfeeling machine" society doesn't sound very liberating to me. The novel Terminal Man speaks of the integration of human brain and computer. Things don't go well.

 

[anthonyg]

A human living in an "ai unfeeling machine" society doesn't sound very liberating to me. The novel Terminal Man speaks of the integration of human brain and computer. Things don't go well.

Yes.
Why on Earth would the uber rich technocrats, be spending a fortune on developing AI, if they had any concern at all that AI might usurp the Master classes?
The stories that it might, are a useful distraction, that encourage the people being "regulated" by AI, to take out their frustrations on the machines, and not the people who paid for and give the machines orders.

 

[baconsalad]

Who needs AI for music apocalypse? Autotune has already destroyed pop music.

 

[Eggs_n_Ham]

Who needs AI for music apocalypse? Autotune has already destroyed pop music.

Oh no doubt. OTOH, I really like beatbox, those folks are amazing. Albeit beatbox sort of throws the concept of ai on it's head!