re: #51 Targetpractice

Why learn to play instruments, write music, or compose lyrics when an analytical engine can just scrape the internet for the work of others and then smash it together until it produces something marketable?

Prior to AI we called those boy bands.

But seriously, it’s both a concern and the same argument we hear with every new technology. The camera is going to end painters, the TV is going to end radio, sound and color are going to wreck movies, renewable energy is going to destroy all those coal and oil jobs.

AI is disruptive, but the actual problem is not AI, it’s our crappy support system for humans. Our system is set up to favor exploitation of resources and people by the few. Machine learning didn’t create that and machine learning isn’t the first thing being exploited by the rich to exploit people. This we seriously have to fix and we always have. AI didn’t cause those at the head of my company to cut 5% of the workforce; that was caused by executives spending billions buying two companies that we couldn’t afford. The company should have pried the $7M a prior CEO got as a package for leaving the company to go CEO somewhere else, but then that would have hurt other executives.

But I’ve also seen people here lament the lack of actual art of some of the things people watch or listen to or read. Is the Hallmark Network art? How do most people here feel about Creed, Maroon 5, Nickelback, or Coldplay?

But I’m also curious: Is art the amount of effort or the end result? If it’s the effort, why isn’t the algorithm learning for the equivalent of multiple human lifetimes part of that estimation? If it’s the end result, does the artist matter?

To me, this is an art story. Einstein was put under pressure to finish his general theory of relativity. The problem he had was that the math needed to complete it was not only relatively young, but Einstein wasn’t as much a mathematician as someone who played with equations until they worked (he was better at math than 99% of the world’s population, but that wasn’t enough for this problem). At one point, he gave a lecture on the status of his efforts. In attendance was David Hilbert, one of the great 20th century mathematicians. Hilbert went home that weekend and solved the equation, but didn’t publish it, believing that Einstein would solve it and should receive the credit. Let’s assume he had released it. History would have recorded it as most likely the Hilbert-Einstein theory. Which part was the art?

I just wonder if “art” is a distinction that only means something to people who want to define “art” and the definition is “I’ll know it when I see it/hear it.” What level of machine learning would make people here stop listening to their favorite bands?

I am not sure what the answer is to the question of “How much should we block machines from doing the work humans do?” Would you buy a car that is completely human manufactured and assembled, like, we pay a human to carve a bolt or cut glass? At what point does a machine become too human-like to be tolerated? Note that we’re not talking about machines that want to kill like some humans do, just routine tasks. Why are some tasks looked on as more favorable to be done by machines than others? Is it because non-blue collar people are finally being affected in a negative way by technology?