{"id":2764,"date":"2024-09-24T12:29:11","date_gmt":"2024-09-24T06:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.iitgn.ac.in\/digitalstudies\/?page_id=2764"},"modified":"2024-09-24T12:29:11","modified_gmt":"2024-09-24T06:59:11","slug":"resource-guide-aravind","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/sites.iitgn.ac.in\/digitalstudies\/resource-guide-aravind\/","title":{"rendered":"Resource Guide – Aravind"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Prelude<\/strong><\/span>
\nUp until the recent past, art and creativity were deemed to be the last forte of human ingenuity.\u00a0The idea that producing a work of art entailed an alchemy of uniquely human elements was\u00a0pretty much an unquestionable truism. I highly doubt that adherents of this idea can plant their\u00a0foot as assuredly anymore in the wake of the marvels of AI and Machine Learning. Research in\u00a0these domains have undoubtedly made leaps and opened up a new minefield of ethical, social,\u00a0political and personal dilemmas. Longstanding notions of art, artist, text, media and data are\u00a0being overturned by the inevitable rise of human-machine interaction and collaboration. These\u00a0readings deal with these changing notions, by taking one across key debates, major\u00a0developments and rumblings of the future of art in the age of sentient machines. The overarching\u00a0theme binding these texts together is \u2018Creative AI, Its Potentials and Challenges.\u2019<\/p>\n

Texts<\/span><\/strong>
\n1. Does Writing Have a Future?<\/em> – Vil\u00e9m Flusser, 1987, Translated in 2011.<\/p>\n

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This book, originally published in 1987, deals with the question of the written word in the age of\u00a0machines and digital technology. In the course of 21 essays contained in this work, Flusser\u00a0meditates on the future of writing when it is no longer the primary transmitter of information,\u00a0superseded by audio, visual, digital medium or a combination of these. He argues that writing\u00a0 entails producing a linearity out of thoughts, and that left to themselves thoughts often go round\u00a0and round in circles instead of a linear trajectory. He also connects the linearity of the writing\u00a0process with what he calls the \u201chistorical consciousness\u201d, the line connecting past, present and future. When intelligent machines that are better able to produce this linearity appear, writing would either be obsolete or would have to change greatly. I chose this work because of my own\u00a0reflections on the future of books and publishing, and the role automation in relation to the artist
\nin a digital world. In the chapters about text and print, he claims that the emphasis on textuality\u00a0would conclude in automation of text production. According to Flusser, texts depend on being\u00a0circulated and published to a large audience which can be achieved with utmost efficiency by\u00a0enlisting the services of digital technology. In addition to this, key roles in publishing would\u00a0become superfluous as computers and advanced word-processors could achieve the same result.\u00a0While there is no shortage of counter arguments against Flusser dethroning the written word and\u00a0placing images and other digital codes in their place, the book would certainly help the readers\u00a0ponder the implications of a post-literate society beyond the chest-thumping and fear mongering.<\/p>\n

2. The Artist in the Machine<\/em> – Arthur I. Miller, 2019<\/p>\n

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Arthur Miller explores the creative potential of AI by taking us across machinic forays\u00a0into art, poetry and music with the expressed purpose of drowning out the paranoia of\u00a0popular and mainstream discourse surrounding this area. He starts out by defining creativity, and tracing the marks of creativity in human luminaries such as Picasso,\u00a0Einstein, Shakespeare, Bach etc and eventually demonstrates that we presently have\u00a0machines displaying many such marks and outperforming humans in a lot of parameters.\u00a0He also lists many of the ways in which AI could be used to create art: from prompts to\u00a0generate ideas to reworking of other works of art. While Miller is optimistic about the\u00a0future of art, he discusses the challenges such as the virtual indistinguishability of human\u00a0and AI art, and the race to imbue machines with consciousness. I personally gravitate\u00a0towards this book as a text to be reckoned with because of the various case studies and\u00a0interviews with scientists and researchers, which are presented candidly. For instance,\u00a0through the case of the first entirely AI written musical produced by Andrew Lloyd\u00a0Weber, Miller argues that machines of the present are capable of being as creative as the\u00a0humans and to shut that out by labeling it dystopian is entirely futile. Students exploring\u00a0the realm of AI could often find themselves disheartened by the negativity of the
\ndiscourse prevalent in many circles. Miller\u2019s book would be the perfect antidote to such\u00a0doomsday prophecies. Miller achieves this by tracing how technological innovations\u00a0have always historically preceded the reinvigoration of art and art forms. Aspiring\u00a0creatives could use this book to acquaint themselves with the possibilities of the present\u00a0and the opportunities of the future.<\/p>\n

3. The Rise of Metacreativity: AI Aesthetics After Remix<\/em> – Eduardo Navas, 2023\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By defining metacreativity as a \u201ccultural variable that emerges when the creative process\u00a0moves beyond human production to include non-human systems\u201d (Navas 30), Navas\u00a0takes us across how mechanization has to move beyond relegating repetitive labor to\u00a0machines in order for them to achieve their complete creative potential. He demonstrates\u00a0how the concept of labor has already been extricated from art, as culturally we have\u00a0learned to associate art with spontaneity aka chance{conceived as an algorithm itself},\u00a0remix aka variation of a pre-existing object, work or template etc. He envisions artists of\u00a0the future as someone not just creating an algorithm, but creating a self-modulating\u00a0program that changes algorithms intelligently to produce the work of art. I am impressed\u00a0with how using notions of remix and metacreativity, Nuvas is able to create an intricate\u00a0framework for a posthuman approach to art. He is also able to theorize a radical shift in
\naesthetics, giving rise to what he terms \u2018AI Aesthetics\u2019, where conception of authorial\u00a0labor and originality are deemphasized for the conception of \u2018co-creation\u2019 or\u00a0metacreativity. While he concedes that the human creative sphere hasn\u2019t entirely\u00a0undergone the kind of radical shift he envisions, he is able to speculate masterfully on the\u00a0nature of a metacreative future. This book in all probability will end up a classic text for\u00a0researchers working on creative AI and the revolutions which it will surely engender.<\/p>\n

4. Artificial Intelligence and the Arts: Computational Creativity, Artistic Behavior,\u00a0and Tools for Creatives<\/em>– Edited By Penousal Machado \u2022 Juan Romero Gary\u00a0Greenfield, 2021.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

An excellent inventory of recent trends, innovations, applications, challenges and opportunities\u00a0for Human-AI collaboration, this book acts as a guidebook of sorts to researchers and\u00a0practitioners of creative arts. Divided into 5 parts covering the length and breadth of arts:\u00a0ranging from visual arts to music and literary arts, the book systematically takes us across\u00a0theoretical paradigms endemic to the field, AI led research in the field and the paradigmatic shift\u00a0that it brings about. When it comes to introducing the AI models and solutions that researchers\u00a0have developed, the volume is very extensive, and goes into great detail about the features and\u00a0potential upgrades. For instance, the chapter titled \u2018Computational Models of Narrative\u00a0Creativity\u2019 contributed by Pablo Gerv\u00e1s starts by discussing Fabula, Discourse and Text and\u00a0elaborates why computational approaches to creating narratives often fail due to difference in\u00a0approach. \u201cComputers generally apply a single specific AI technique to these problems, Whereas\u00a0humans seem to combine several cognitive abilities into the task\u201d (Machado et al. 209). Then it
\nevaluates existing systems that generate narratives, such as TALE-SPIN, AUTHOR,\u00a0UNIVERSE, FABULIST, IRIS, OPIATE, BRUTUS, MEXICA, MINSTREL,\u00a0SCHEHERAZADE, STORYBOOK and many others. I believe that the book greatly illuminates\u00a0vast areas of the Creative AI field that often seem technical, inaccessible and esoteric to an\u00a0interdisciplinary researcher or an artist. The chapter mentioned above has certainly offered me\u00a0the much needed impetus to take note of innovations in Draft and Proto-Literary generation\u00a0tools. Each part of the extensive bibliography offers a point of departure and exploration, and\u00a0serves as an indispensable guide to any enthusiast.<\/p>\n

Works Cited<\/strong><\/p>\n

Flusser, Vil\u00e9m. Does Writing Have a Future?<\/em> University of Minnesota Press, 2011.<\/p>\n

Machado, Penousal, et al., editors. Artificial Intelligence and the Arts: Computational Creativity<\/em>, Artistic Behavior, and Tools for Creatives<\/em>. Springer International Publishing, 2021.<\/p>\n

Miller, Arthur I. The Artist in the Machine: The World of AI-Powered Creativity<\/em>. Penguin\u00a0Random House LLC, 2019.<\/p>\n

Navas, Eduardo. The Rise of Metacreativity: AI Aesthetics After Remix<\/em>. Routledge, 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prelude Up until the recent past, art and creativity were deemed to be the last forte of human ingenuity.\u00a0The idea that producing a work of art entailed an alchemy of uniquely human elements was\u00a0pretty much an unquestionable truism. I highly doubt that adherents of this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2764","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sites.iitgn.ac.in\/digitalstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2764"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sites.iitgn.ac.in\/digitalstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sites.iitgn.ac.in\/digitalstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sites.iitgn.ac.in\/digitalstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sites.iitgn.ac.in\/digitalstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2764"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/sites.iitgn.ac.in\/digitalstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2771,"href":"http:\/\/sites.iitgn.ac.in\/digitalstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2764\/revisions\/2771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sites.iitgn.ac.in\/digitalstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}