Drawing with Robots
The creative capacity of technology has been debated and
considered from a multitude of angles. One side argues that creativity requires
imagination and original thinking, which is something that couldn’t possibly
exist in an entity whose entire existence has been pre-programed. On the other
side, AI has created original artwork, music, and poetry, stretching the
boundaries of what it truly means to be creative. Creativity, being something
expressive unique and eccentric, seems to become so much more narrow and
confining when we claim that it is only something human beings can achieve. Keeping
both sides of this debate in mind, one woman is attempting to stretch the
limits of human and artificial creativity and explore ideas brought up by both
arguing sides through the creation of, and collaboration with robots.
Sougwen Chung is an artist in New York who creates her artwork
in collaboration with AI technology. She describes how she, “made work
alongside machines, data, and emerging technologies. It's part of a
lifelong fascination about the dynamics of individuals and
systems and all the messiness that that entails. It's how [she’s]
exploring questions about where AI ends and we begin.” This unique outlook is
what I believe to be the third side of the ongoing debate about AI’s capability
of creativity. Chung is taking a new stance, and choosing to enhance her creative work and seek
inspiration through AI. The first bot she created was named Drawing
Operations Unit: Generation 1 or D.O.U.G for short, and was programmed to
mimic her actions as she drew. The resulting drawing differed from her initial
expectations as the robot arm in real-time made mistakes and did not behave as
it had in the simulation. She found, however, these mistakes made the piece
more interesting and hence lead her further down the investigative path of the
relationship between technological and human creativity.
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| Photo Credit: https://sougwen.com |
For her next bot, she designed a visual algorithm to
extract information from all of her previous artwork. “[She] trained a neural
net on these drawings in order to generate recurring patterns in the
work, that was then fed through custom software back into the machine.” By
doing this Chung was able to design a bot that reflected her work, and when she
drew with it, it was like collaborating with herself. In other words, she could
create with AI technology that matched her drawing style, as the robot had
‘learned’ through her work. Her pieces were now even more unique, as instead of
solely mimicking her motions, it was following her movement while also
performing additions that reflect her aesthetic.
Although Chung only briefly mentioned the behind the
scenes work that went into creating this AI technology, the process of neural
networking is important when considering how much her bot is contributing to
the realization of the artwork. Neural networks are “brain-inspired systems
which are intended to replicate the way that we humans learn”. They are fed
large data sets, take in input, weight the data, analyze, and generate
output. A long training process then
takes place as data is continuously added giving the bot a simulated learning
environment and ample practice time. The predicted versus actual results, known
as the cost function, are assessed resulting in the adjustment of thresholds
and weights. This backtracking is known as backpropagation and is done in an
attempt to decrease the cost function as much as possible. After much work, the
resulting AI can recognize patterns independently and the trainer's work is
done. The resulting bot learned just as we do, and after training for some time
is proficient in its new skill.
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| Photo Credit: |
Looking through Sougwen Chung’s work, it is obvious that
she is an extremely talented and creative individual. But how does her artwork
and pursuit of AI collaboration relate to the ongoing debate about technology
and creativity? Is it safe to say that D.O.U.G, for example, is creative since
it is creating original artwork alongside Sougwen? Or is the creativity visible
in this artwork representative of Sougwen alone even if she is unaware of, or
have full control of the outcome of her work?
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| Photo Credit: https://sougwen.com |
While humans play a large part in the training of neural
network AI, there is one issue. Neural networks “are “black boxes,” in which
the user feeds in data and receives answers. They can fine-tune the answers,
but they don’t have access to the exact decision-making process.” The
implications that surround this lack of understanding lead back to the debate
of creativity and put to question, if we do not understand what is taking
place, is its output original? Although this individual instance may not settle
the debate over AI and whether or not it can be creative, it is a glimpse of
the future and yet another example of technology further intertwined into our
daily lives. The future of technology is one where collaboration between humans
and technology is essential, and Sougwen is leading the charge it what this
will look like in the world of creative arts.
Woah cool topic Olivia! I find it fascinating that AI can now allow artists to essentially collaborate with themselves. It definitely opens up a whole can of worms as to what is considered 'original.' Like you mentioned, the AI had to learn and perfect its style, just like humans do, but is it still original if it's directly based off of the works of another person? I still don't have a solid opinion here, since AI is basically bringing us into uncharted territory. What are your thoughts?
ReplyDeleteI think it is difficult to assess if AI can have original work because there is no way of proving or quantifying human originality. For example, artists base their work off of their surrounding environment and what they see and perceive. Similarly, AI would start their creative process the same way, they are just supplied information electronically. Both are being 'fed' the inspiration needed to create an original piece, there is just a different way of absorbing this content.
DeleteI agree that this is a difficult topic to have a solid opinion on. My main thought always is that without the programming and the artists' original work the AI would never have created those paintings. On the other hand, the works of art that the AI created truly were original in the fact that they would never have been created without the AI. Is it fair to say that originality can be always be questioned, therefore we should appreciate any sort of originality without worrying about how that was programmed in the first place?
DeleteI think this is a great example of where humans and AI work together instead of working separately. I think society views art as something that only humans can do, or if AI can create art, that it something that it can only do by itself. This really pushes what we view as collaboration and gives credit to AI as a contributor in a piece of work.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Across fields such as crime fight or data analytics, the best way to use A.I. is to collaborate with it rather than trying to create a perfect A.I. to completely replace human. I think A.I. is meant to be a tool and it should stay that way.
DeleteThis is so cool! I love the collaboration between human and robots/AI like this, other than solely replacing all human's activities by bots. Also, it'd be interesting to know how many artwork she had to fetch into the neural network for her second bot so that it would work properly, because the neural network wouldn't be able to perform well if the data given is insufficient, while she's a human and cannot draw that so many artworks in a short period of time.
ReplyDeleteI can't see myself fully agree with any side too. On one hand, since the output of these neural networks is somehow unpredictable and cannot be solely controlled by its programmer, I'd say AI is capable of creativity and producing artworks, but not very authentic and original ones. Without the input data, existing pieces, there wouldn't even be an AI in the beginning.
ReplyDeleteWithout previous artists who inspire and influence current artists then would today's artists even exist? I believe that AI-generated art is the next progression of art being built on the shoulders of the generation that came before. It will be interesting to see applications to other artistic domains besides the visual. Maybe Eliza will drop a fire mixtape... who knows. Great blog post by the way Olivia!!
DeleteInteresting topic. It is great to see painting created by AI. But I wonder whether these paintings have meanings or emotion behind them since I strongly believe that art should be created with emotion of the artist and convey some message along with it.
ReplyDeleteThat's a valid point. However, I don't think that all art is based on emotion and should send a message. I myself have made some creative (in my opinion) art while bored, and many have made doodles that have turned into something more than they initially expected. However, it is true that even in those situations, the subconscious plays a big part in what the drawing will end up becoming.
DeleteDid you attend Stonedahl's j term class final presentations? Someone actually did a robot that was painting. It wasn't great, but it was still something really cool especially for someone who did not have a lot of time to do it.
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