Creativity and personality in computers?

[think]

If a computer can judge a work of art, then I am sure it ,itself, can also produce art. That is, if it can decide who is creative then it itself can be creative.

The key to creativity is making analogies. Deciding which is good or what is bad. Just random mixture of ideas is not any creative. If we want to know more about creativity we will have to first answer why people have different preferences? like favorite colors, foods, etc. What makes one feel pleasure when sees red and the another when he sees blue?

But there is another thing. One's preferences changes with time. I ,myself, had changed my favorite color thrice. First green, then brown, now sky blue. What makes these kinds of changes?

If we solve this mystery of personal favorites, then we would be able to create programs that have personal favorites, can imagine and are creative.

Any body has any idea about any computer program which exhibits personal favorites or creativity? Or any theory about personal favorites?

 

[Zero]

Once we get the abstract thinking part down, maybe...

 

[maximus]

i have no doubt that it is possible to create a computer that can think as creatively or as deeply as humans. after all, what are we but some neurons that make up a thinking brain? and if we ever could create such an entity, with only physical material, it would be hard for others to keeps saying we have a soul beyond our physical body.

 

[Mentat]

Sure it's possible, but your problem is really philosophical, not scientific. You see, the problem will always be: how do we know that the computer is actually conscious, and is not just a perfect simulator of the actions of conscious beings? We can't even know for sure that other humans are conscious, let alone something that they create.

 

[steppenwolf]

in response to how to define and hopefully reproduce creativity; the key to creative thought is making connections betwen seemingly unrelated ideas, how would you teach a computer to ignore obvious and logical connections in favor of creative thinking, art is about taking a urinal and saying 'this is a fountain', i doubt the logical entity that is a computer would deal with these concepts very well.

 

[DR OF DEATH]

steppenwolf has the nail on the head with a very big hammer, computers are logical, creativity is illogical, therefore one cannot be the other

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by drdeath
steppenwolf has the nail on the head with a very big hammer, computers are logical, creativity is illogical, therefore one cannot be the other

And yet I disagree, because there must be a logic behind creativity, otherwise it would never produce any descernable (sp?) structure - even in the eyes of the artist him/herself.

 

[Another God]

I agree witih mentat. Just because creativity is complicated beyond our understanding does not make it illogical. It is this sort of thinking that keeps hindering our progress in understanding the universe.

The unvierse has shown time and time again, that nothing is illogical. Some things are just more complicated and less superficial than others...

 

[ahrkron]

Sure this is not all, but part of what constitutes art is the ability to recognize social stereotypes and behavioral patterns, in order to either expose or contradict them.

Which means that it can be reduced to pattern recognition and production of analogies (or "anti-analogies").

Also, the very motivation for doing art comes from the positive reinforcement that a person receives from her environment. Again, a matter of pattern recognition.

Plus, machines are potentially much better than us to store and retrieve complex patterns.

 

[Tail]

Art can NOT be judged by computers under any circumstances.

 

[selfAdjoint]

I think that whatever human creativity is, it isn't supported by magic. It is supported by the same biotechnology that runs the rest of our cognitive activities. This is just as deterministic as a computer circuit, and if this can produce creativity then so can a sufficiently complex and subtle computer circuit.

The web software makes remote connections literally all the time, without being told which ones to make where. If you saw a human doing that, you would call it creative.

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by Tail
Art can NOT be judged by computers under any circumstances.

Thanks for your vote. Would you care to join the discussion next week?