Recently, I got into a debate with a friend of mine about whether AI art is.. art and whether is should be allowed in commercial projects. He is on the position that it is not as it can only mix and replicate existing works. Thus not art. While I'm on the team calming that it can be and we don't know yet due to the lack of understanding of the what even art exactly means. Also that when we advance enough to create a special kind of AI - a full brain simulation - it should be treated as an actual person and thus be allowed to create art.
That got me thinking deeply about the definition of creativity. As that seems to be the thing people are debating about. Can AI create? Also that's the thing asked in court. Is something created or replicated - is it original work? I want a piratical definition. Something I can base my decisions on in the future.
Suppose you, the reader, is a judge in a court room on the case of Ms. Miller vs Neckbeard the pirate (name stolen from Anticitizen X, now Philosophy: Engineered's video regarding the definition of free will. Very in-creative, I know.). Ms. Miller is suing Neckbeard the pirate in the criminal court for fraud. She commissioned Neckbeard the pirate for a piece of art. But Neckbeard the pirate sent her a painting with 3 squiggly line on it and claiming it's his creative work. "That's no art!" she says. "I can make the same painting in 10 seconds." She pulled out an iPad and managed to make a painting that is identical to the one she received. What are the tests we can do to decide if a work is creative or not? Under what circumstances can the painting be considered creative?
=> AntiCitizen X - The Problem of Free Will (And How To Solve It)
In fact a lot of what I'm going to present either stems from or is inspired by the video above. I highly recommend you to watch it. It's a very good video. I'm not going to go into the details and will reiterate points that is required to understand my position. But I subscribe to the same verificationism and compatibilism as AntiCitizen X. It may help you understand my point of view more.
Getting back to our court room. The tests you propose is effectively your definition of creativity. Some might argue that creativity is some metaphysical thing. Saying it's not a part of the physical world. Thus we cannot even hope to test it. Sure thing. But remember we are in a court room. At the end of the day, we muse decide if Neckbeard the pirate should be punished or not. What exactly are you gonna do if creativity is a metaphysical thing? Invent some metaphysical-creativity detector? Trust one party unconditionally? Throw a dice? Your gut feeling? - That won't work.
Today I want to explore what creativity is. Provide a working definition to guide us in the future. And hopefully by the definition we came up with, this post will be considered creative work. I hope I'm not so wrong that I'll regret wasting time on this long post. To be frank, the only qualification I have being finished philosophy 102 in collage years ago. And studied formal logic as a part of my computer science degree.
Let's start from the very basics. These are some cases that is known, thus any definition of creativity shall not contradict them.
Some observations from the above statements:
Now let's dive into some situations that will pin down properties related to creativity.
Suppose there's a tribe of monkeys. Quadrillions of them living for quadrillions of years on a planet size of quadrillions of earth. Where each monkey is paired with a typewriter. Typing is how they pass boringness. By meshing buttons randomly ever once in a while. And the God of that world periodically checks what the monkeys have typed. Eventually, one monkey types a Shakespeare play. The God is impressed and saves that work. On the other hand. There's Shakespeare himself. He wrote the play after his hard work, his experience of working in the theater, his knowledge of the language, his understanding of the human nature. It's a masterpiece. It's a creative work.
Now, I have both work on my hand. They look identical. In fact, each word and the positions of words on the paper is identical. Looking at both copies I held, you'd think they are carbon copies of each other. But they are not. One is a creative work. The other is something made randomly by monkey pressing buttons. Devise some method to determine which is which.
You can't. That's the point. There's insufficient information to determine if something is created from a creative process or not. How an object is created is required to decide.
In computer science, an oracle is an object that magically outputs the answer to any question. It's a black box. You can't see what's inside. You can't see how it works. You can't see how it outputs the answer. You can only ask it questions and it will output the answer. Suppose there's an identical twin. But one of them have creativity and one does not. Yet the one that does not have creativity held an oracle. An object that outputs step by step instruction for any request of making a creative work. The instructions is so easy to follow that even a toddler can follow.
As an example. Let's put the twins into a test chamber. And I will grant you any equipment as long as it's physically possible to create. What tests can we do to find the creative twin?
One idea quickly popping into mind to ask both twins to repeatedly draw the same cat a few times. The creative twin will likely draw a different cat out of shear boringness. While the oracle may output instructions to draw the same cat over and over. However, this quickly falls apart. The oracle may have a internal database of past requests. And act accordingly.
Maybe a time machine? The creative twin will likely draw a different cat each time we rewind time. Putting every atom and subatomic particles back to where it were. While the oracle due to being deterministic will always output the same instructions. Thus finding out who is the creative twin. Good idea but some problems. First of all, as far as we know, time travel is very likely impossible for many very good reasons. Secondly, the universe the largely deterministic. Resetting all synapses and messenger chemicals in the brain will most likely result in the same output. Thus both twins will draw the same cat as they drew before rewinding.
There is one thing that may help this case. quantum physics states the world is fundamentally random. Every free proton has a random lifetime. According to physics, any proton, even with the exact velocity, position and momentum will experience decay at a random time. Thus, if we rewind time and the human brain operates on quantum principles. It is possible that the creative twin will draw a different cat. However, we can easily replicate the behavior by adding some radioactive material and a Geiger counter. Connect that to the oracle. And get the oracle to vary the instructions based on the Geiger counter. Making no difference between the creative twin and the oracle.
I will get back to this case later on.
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