Yael Eylat Van-Essen PhD – Curator / Researcher

Artificial Creativity – Hybridizing the Artificial and the Human

We live in a new complex ecology in which the clear distinction between humans and machines that has characterized the technological world in the past, is becoming increasingly blurred: computer systems and the logic of code are embedded in the most essential characteristics of human existence, while automated machines are acquiring traits of living systems. Thanks to new developments in the field of computer science, on the one hand, and in the natural sciences and new-materialism, on the other, the new algorithms-based machines are no longer characterized only by computational mechanisms of a significant logical nature. Still, they also take part in areas previously considered unique to human beings, especially the creative field. Their creativity is being implemented both with respect to information – through the use of algorithms for identifying patterns and acting on them, and on material phenomena – through identification of the material’s ‘code’  and the ability to control it.

In his article “Technology’s in-betweenness” philosopher Luciano Floridi suggests classifying technologies by three categories of order that describe the relationships between users and objects. While the first and second-order technologies refer to the relationship between technology and the world of phenomena or the person who uses them, third-order technologies, relate to other technologies as users. These technologies exclude the human subject from the chain of interactions and thus become autonomous. Information technologies, artificial intelligence systems and artificial life are among the territories where third-order technologies are most fully realized. In the design process, these technologies are becoming increasingly significant with the use of deep learning systems and computerized neural networks that enable automated creative processes. With these processes, they challenge the traditional meaning of the concept of creativity and its unique qualities.

Indeed, recently, computer-generated and robotic platforms performed what can be considered as “artificial creativity”. These platforms adapt themselves to the characteristics of the information space rather than imitating creative human models: non-supervised creative platforms as well as biological-based models (emergence / artificial life), which mark a transition from the known, from human intent and conceptual construction to the unknown, strange, mysterious, autonomous and unpredictable. Therefore, in this new condition, the binary distinction between the thinking, learning and creative human being and the executive machine that optimizes and improves human activity through the automation systems embedded within is challenged and enables new forms of human-machine interactions.

As a result, in the current era dominated by the neoliberal economy, technological developments are considered to be the key stimulators of what is considered as creativity. The proposed paper will relate to design practices and specific design projects which use machine creativity, whose meanings go far beyond the mediumal formulation that they present. The paper will analyze the conceptual principles that machine creativity rely upon and the infrastructure that enables its performance. Following Bruno Latour and Michel Callon’s actor-network theory, it will explore the ways in which computer systems act within a different environment, virtual or material, connecting natural and artificial phenomena and objects to large data systems, and the ideological and political perceptions and value systems reflected by them. Seeing the new ‘artificial’ creative models developed by machines as an opportunity to rethink the concept of creativity, and to redefine the role of the designer in this new reality, I will relate to design works that recount to the practical dimensions of learning systems and to the philosophical and ethical aspects derived from them. What is the meaning of ‘optimizing creativity’, will be a central question in that respect.