Joined 8 years ago
Were John Berger here, I'm sure he would remind us all that art does not exist in a vacuum, but lives in a social context.
The most meaningful (to me) critique of AI generated works are that they deprive the artist of the benefit of the investigation. As media become more disconnected (intermediated), the reasoning path between urge and resolution is obscured for the artist.
Generative models are highly intermediated.
The purpose of art may be thought of as the effort to produce artifacts. But at a societal level it is a process to reveal "truths" embedded in commonly held "lies."
I like this specific piece in the same way I liked Duchamp's urinal. It makes a statement about art more than being art. And in concretizing that statement raises itself to the status of "art."
But if Duchamp (or anyone else) tried to pass off a second urinal as a second fountain, the impact would not be there and it would not be art.
Which is to say... I think the Bedminster piece IS art because of its context. But subsequent AI generated pieces would need to be judged on different merits.
If the Bedminster piece is indicative of the quality of output of generative AI, human artists have nothing new to fear.
There has always been the danger of art patrons subsidizing substandard public art because of budget concerns. This is just the next chapter in that story.
Bedminster is not known for its patronage, and it's unlikely that will change anytime soon.
Though yes, to the degree that generative models rip off existing artists, whirl it around in a convolutional neural network and barf up something... Yes, this is a prime example of what Massimo Vignelli called "visual pollution."
The article says Amazon is not looking to change its "Back to the Office" policy.
I agree... They realize they laid off the wrong mix of people, but they still haven't figured out one way of hiring qualified former employees is to allow people to work remotely.
But... yes... this is just using NFS locally to see what's already in GIT, which is perfectly find and as Julia says, allows you to appreciate the structure of the git repo. Ignore this old man yelling at clouds.
I can appreciate the cameras and lidar on the Weymos don't give their remote operators a lot of good data about the depth of water on the road-way. As you point out, humans in cars often don't get this right. I think the humans that don't drive into deep water are the ones who a) give any amount of water on the roadway a big NOPE and b) people familiar with the local environment and use multiple visual clues to judge the true depth of the flooding.
Natalie mentions the Newman & Nagel's text "Gödel's Proof," a
(//the//?) 1958 classic on the subject. [[ 1 ]] Having left IBM
in December 1990, I spent a month with the text, dipping into
mild insanity, taking to strange wines to relieve myself of the
fear that my previous years long study of Whitehead & Russell's
"Principia Mathematica" [[ 2 ]] was useless.
I really appreciate the inclusion of Alvir's statement on
whether or not Gödel thought he proved all logical systems
undecidable and incomplete. About 80% into the article is her
quote:
>> Often people will speak as if the CH is the smoking gun that
>> shows sometimes mathematical questions have no answer. But
>> in my opinion, this situation provides very little evidence
>> that there are “absolutely undecidable” mathematical
>> problems, relative to any given permissible framework.
Though I would have added a reference to Infinitary Logic
[[ 3 ]] after dropping the reference to L-omega-1-omega. I
suspect most readers would find discussion of higher-order and
modern logic a bit confusing without a pause for further study.
But a guide post pointing in the appropriate direction would be
good.
That this is the only critique I have of the article speaks to
Wolchover's skill in communicating complex ideas for a lay
audience. I really liked this article, so thank you @baruchel
for posting the reference to it.
:: References
1. https://search.worldcat.org/title/1543160023
2. https://search.worldcat.org/title/933122838
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinitary_logicThe model returned an answer that looked legit, but after the board meeting someone pointed out that the answer was wrong and had we given this answer to a paying customer, we might have been criminally liable. I'm not sure who would have been criminally liable. I don't think they would arrest the entire company.
This was over two years ago and Claude seems to be getting MUCH better over the last year, so maybe things are better now. But, as the Russians say, "доверяй, но проверяй" (trust, but verify.)