For as long as there have been machines, I suppose, the question has been asked: Can Machines Make Art? With the exponential growth of artificial intelligence this century, the topic is discussed with increasing frequency. It’s an interesting question, but there is a supplementary question that I find even more interesting: How Much Do We Care About Machine-Made Art? To me, there are at least three valid answers: a lot, a little, or not at all.
Here’s an analogy. Household pets have been around for most of human history. Some people develop deep and abiding relationships with household pets, enough to make the question Can Household Pets Have Deep and Abiding Relationships with Humans ludicrous. For some people, the relationships they have with their pets are all that they need – human relationships are superfluous. Others prefer to have relationships with both pets and people. Still others never feel the need to connect with an animal – people are all they need. And, of course, there are those who would just as soon not connect with anybody or anything.
Taken in that light, the objective answer to the question Can Machines Make Art is what it is, while the subjective answer to Do I Care About Machine-Made Art a Lot, a Little, or Not at All is one that each of us can answer accurately and with complete validity, whether by choice or just by personal predilection.
We can believe that machines will develop the ability to create art, if they don’t already have it, but there is no reason to assume that machine-made art would replace art made by people. Machine-made art could just be one option available to those who prefer it or those who are happy to have it. And anyone who wants art that offers a human point of view, either in conjunction with machine-made art or to its exclusion, can have that as well.
I agree that to the extent we care *who* made what, a machine made art will fall out for an audience the way you described.
But I also think the point of any future with significant machine made art is that the cult of personality that has so captivated us for so long won’t be as viable. Unless it is advertised specifically AS ‘machine made art’ it will simply be *art*. So, as merely one source of art among the many streams an audience receives, unless it is made noteworthy AS specifically interesting because it is machine made, it will be on the same level as all other art. And this means that once the algorithms kick in and machines perfect making art that humans *actually* *like* (Google and facebook already make their bank on curating our instincts and desires), there will be nothing essentially ‘special’ about art made by humans other than its origin. Nothing special on the level of our ability to appreciate and consume the art itself.
Maybe the more interesting consequence is for the artists themselves. In a world where they compete for an audience’s attention not merely with other human artists but with machines calibrated to pull every available human heart string, the amateurs and dilettantes will get wiped out. Only the rare genius might compete on that level. And every serious professional had to start out as an amateur, so follow that one out if you will. The personal human learning curve might never be able to catch up to full fledged artificial intelligence in the same marketplace……
Imagine it like this: The machines making art are eventually as good at doing it as Deep Blue was in playing chess. That means that machine art is already at the level of a chess grand-master. Now imagine a marketplace where every new professional had to earn their crusts against such immaculate competition. The human grand-masters might have a hard time competing, so where would the mere mortals like the rest of us finish?
If an audience could choose between a grand-master version and a flawed thing that was made in the rare spaces where its human maker was not feeding the kids, paying the bills, or otherwise leading a human life, what chance is there for humans to get enough opportunity to even become competitive? Grand-masters in waiting will perish on the learning curve.
If art is simply one more product and machines can do a better job, do it more efficiently and cost effectively, there is an argument there for making art as automated as the auto industry.
And that, for me is the BIG question: Is art simply a product?
Because when you go down that road, it seems the future contains this as a possibility. Is art a product? Well, as an artist myself I usually feel the ‘product’ part is incidental rather than essential. I am not a maker of product but a person who has something to express. We are hamstrung at every turn by our default reading of art as merely that-which-an-audience-consumes.
And so art will always survive, not because machines can’t do it better, but because *the* *doing* *is* *itself* *a* *necessary* *human* *act*. You might say that creative expression is part of what makes us human 🙂 Kids will pick up crayons whether or not machines also make art. Folks will sing in the shower whether or not synthetic music dominates the play lists and airwaves. Folks will break out in spontaneous dance whether or not Swan Lake gets performed only by super-human robots. Not because art is a product, but because art is what humans do.
Any thoughts?
We are in full agreement. The presence of Deep Blue hasn’t had a negative impact on people deciding to sit down for a game of chess, nor has it dampened the effect of watching two masters battle it out to checkmate.
And, as you indicate, there is only a problem when we view the issue through the prism of the market. In a society that prizes all contributions to general benefit, making a living is beside the point. It’s easy to see the flaws in that kind of economic approach, and difficult to imagine a world that isn’t dominated by market thinking, but that doesn’t change the fact that market constructs can’t fully define artistic value.
I suppose I have to pause a moment at the “cult of personality” comment. It seems a bit too easy to plant the word “cult” on anything we don’t agree with or want to understand, as conquering nations habitually contrasted their own “religions” with native “cults.” The mindlessness with which many people line up behind a premise doesn’t necessarily negate the power of the premise. Isn’t it possible that personality is one of the things that human-made art can offer: the work that, for all its flaws, reflects the experience and vision of one particular artist, that gives us something we identify with, or want to identify with?