Hacker News Reader

Comment by hks0 | Hacker News Reader

> Do generative interfaces -- replacing creating with searching -- bring a person closer or further from feeling like they have touched the limits of their creative potential and created something truly from their heart? ...

> Why is a machine "discovering" cubism a good thing?

Maybe because creativity in this space was exclusive to a few, but now I get to at least imitate it. A machine doing the creativity part could act like a prosthetic leg for my brain, who was missing it altogether.

Sure, I'll never be Picasso myself, but I don't have to wait for one to be born either. The tool can find new ways for me to express myself.

View on HN

I don’t think the machine will find new ways for you to express yourself, it will only find ways you can impress others. As I see it, it is a prosthetic leg for you ego, not your creativity.

I think real creativity is creatio ex nihilo (creation from nothing). Not a remix of what exited before, but something fundamentally new. Trained machines will only ever be able to remix their training data.

i strongly disagree that real creativity is created from nothing. i agree that pure remixing is not very creative, but there is more between remixing and creating from nothing. in fact creating from nothing is almost impossible. every creative act is built on something. denying that is rejecting almost every creative work out there. for the majority of works you will be able to find a previous work that it is built upon. even a sculpture made from a rock or piece of wood that is inspired from the shape of the material is not created from nothing.

I would even question how creative a person is who thinks that way.

All artist are indebted to their influences. It is interesting to me growing up how music artists would gush over their influences. There was almost pride in a diverse and wide influence set.

Led Zeppelin literally stole parts from old blues songs for some of their most popular songs.

Anyone who has learned an instrument started out playing other people's music.

No one considers themselves an "artist" because they can play chopsticks on the piano. AI lets anyone play chopsticks. It means absolutely nothing. The "art" is then in taking it way past that.

Quite the opposite: if the caveman hadn't drew some engravings on the wall, then Picasso had to do it, without ever getting to the cubism. He got to start the movement because he had thousands of years of previous work to get inspiration and learn from.

That the machines can create or not, is a different question.

That's a lot of assumption about how one uses the end result, and doesn't say anything about the creation itself.

What if I guide the machine to create something new that I personally could never have on my own, yet never share it with anyone?

It's a prosthetic leg for my brain, whose expected function is both ego and creativity.

Yes, that’s a lot of assumptions. That’s why I tried to punctuate that is my opinion, and my view, while speculating how you would use it. Or, more accurately, how “one” would use it, since I know nothing about you and just using the impression that I got from your comment to express my generalization of the issue and my judgemental stance on it.

That said, I am still fully on the side that this use of AI is not IA, agreeing with the author of the post. A “prosthetic leg” is a metaphor for IA, so I don’t think it is that. Neither for creativity, nor for ego actually. It is a subterfuge for, maybe, aiding one into self acceptance of what they can produce artistically.

My advice would be to not use AI and, instead, make an effort into understanding what one can produce without AI, even if it is not aesthetically similar to what others produce. Dig deeper into what one can produce, regardless of any accepted technique for the craft, and that will be art. A more significant art and more humanly creative (by definition) of what the output of an AI would ever be. And a more significant art for any observer/reader, even if it contains what is perceived as rookie vices or mistakes.

> A machine doing the creativity part could act like a prosthetic leg for my brain,

Are you saying that we all have the innate ability to create art, and that anyone who creates art has a "handicap"?

This is the point the writer was making. If you let AI make the art they people will never learn how to make art.

To be able to be whatever you want while you are alive is going to make every human useless. You will be able to be replaced by anyone who can make a similar copy. Adn maybe this is the point of AI.

You know, women were attracted to me because of my photography and musicianship. These were genetic traits specific to me. Other women were attracted to men who were maybe more logical. What is going to happen when we can all have the person we want? I will tell you, art will be dead. No one will make art, because art is not about intelligence, it is about tension, conflict, jealousy, pain, joy and psychosis. And you cannot have those if everyone can do anything and be anyone.

> Are you saying that we all have the innate ability to create art, and that anyone who creates art has a "handicap"?

I meant that (specifically) I, don't seem to have that innate ability everyone else seem to have, but I still feel the urge to express myself through art. Feels like wanting to shout, when you have no voice.

I make the AI write stories for my own amusement, by describing each scene that AI turns into a paragraph of the final story. I always failed at writing before, and no amount of practice helped, but now I have a prosthetic leg that I can walk with.

> If you let AI make the art they people will never learn how to make art.

I don't agree. We have cars, but people still cycle, or join a marathon. And it makes their activities even more meaningful, they do it for the sake of itself.

Or maybe they won't learn. But why should we force them? They can choose.

> To be able to be whatever you want while you are alive is going to make every human useless

This one I agree! I compare it to the industrial revolution, it made human workers irreverent. Would've made sense to stop the progress because of that?

The AI is much worse though, it seems to make everyone and everything meaningless. But stopping AI to keep ourselves relevant, is very fake.

I think it's a though question, and though I don't have the answer, I dont think the answer is stopping the AI either.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com