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.

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.

Photo Credit: 

https://data-flair.training/blogs/artificial-neural-networks-for-machine-learning/ 

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?

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.