The Virtual Mind

As part of our work with enabling artificial intelligence, in its many forms, to be an enhancer for the great variety of art manifests, we are now initiating a collaboration with an artist collective to formulate and integrate our future initiatives in this exceptionally exciting field. As a starting point, we have crafted an AI Art Manifesto which will focus our efforts and coming ventures.
THE AI ART MANIFESTO
* Art is the pinnacle of human achievement
* Let art be art again!
* Do not fight technological development, embrace it
* An algorithm is never responsible, ultimately it reflects its developer’s intent
* The world and us humans are much more complex than what
any data patterns can replicate or express
* If and when artificial intelligence becomes truly autonomous,
that is when this is going to get really interesting!
* Genuine creativity will be worth more than ever!

Do read more in https://www.routledge.com/AI-for-Arts/Hageback-Hedblom/p/book/9781032048802

AI för Digital Krigföring är en bok som i detalj redogör för hur vapenutvecklingen inom artificiell intelligens på avgörande sätt nu förändrar både taktiska och strategiska överväganden i militära operationer, och hur detta i en allt högre grad också påverkar icke-kombatanter, såsom företagsvärlden. AI applikationer kommer inte bara användas för sabotage och spionage i cybermiljöer men också alltmer i psykologisk krigföring då bots kan replikera mänskligt beteende allt bättre. Vad som väntar är komplexa digitala militära strategier av blixtkrigskaraktär, där olika fientligt sinnade aktörer med olika objektiv genom hybrida krigsformer och samarbeten kontinuerligt söker potentiella måltavlor för att uppnå politiska, militära och kriminella syften.

Boken kommer ut i Augusti på engelska med titeln ’AI for Digital Warfare’ och en svensk översättning är under övervägande.

Se mer information från förlaget https://www.routledge.com/AI-for-Digital-Warfare/Hageback-Hedblom/p/book/9781032048703

Se också http://www.the-virtual-mind.com/ för information om The Virtual Mind.

AI för Konst är en bok för var läsare som fascineras av människa-maskin interaktionen, en pågående och accelererande utveckling som för oss allt närmare teknologin, och där det nu finns en djup men berättigad oro att det kanske blir maskinerna som kommer segrande ur detta möte. Detta paradigmskifte presenteras här i dess kanske mest esoteriska form, nämligen hur artificiell intelligens påverkar konsten både som motiv men också konstnärskapet självt genom de varierande konstformerna. Vad blir egentligen kvar av det mänskliga och vår skaparkraft när AI algoritmer skriver, målar och musicerar bättre än oss, kanske t o m mycket bättre? Formuleringen av ett konstnärsmanifest för artificiell intelligens har saknats i denna verkligen helt livsavgörande debatt, så förhoppningsvis kan denna bok fylla ett vaccuum i diskussionen av hur vårt förhållande till AI kommer att påverka inte bara konsten, konstfilosofin och estetiken men också den tekniska utvecklingen självt.

Boken kommer ut i Augusti på engelska med titeln ’AI for Arts’ och en svensk översättning är under övervägande.

Se mer information från förlaget https://www.routledge.com/AI-for-Arts/Hageback-Hedblom/p/book/9781032048802

Se också http://www.the-virtual-mind.com/ för information om The Virtual Mind.

Kan artificiell intelligens någonsin bli kreativt?

Den kreativa skaparkraften är mänsklighetens mest värdefulla egenskap, vilken över tid genom häpnadsväckande innovationer tagit oss från ett liv som grottmänniskor till den nutida digitala miljön. Men kreativt tänkande är lättare sagt än gjort och innovationer händer inte alls i den takt vi önskar, det är uppenbart att vi ännu inte fullt ut förstått den kreativa koden. Med den snabba utvecklingen inom AI och med algoritmer som alltmer fungerar i enlighet med mänskligt tänkande, är vi nu på väg mot ett genombrott i forskningen om kreativitet? Vilka uttryck kommer detta att ta, och är det den saknade länken som slutgiltigt förenar människa med maskin? AI för Kreativitet är en bok som utlovar en fascinerande läsupplevelse om vad som nu sker inom AI och försöken att artificiellt skapa mänsklig kreativitet, något som kommer att för evigt förändra våra liv på gott och ont.

Boken kommer ut i September på engelska med titeln ’AI for Creativity och en svensk översättning är under övervägande.

Se mer information från förlaget https://www.routledge.com/AI-for-Creativity/Hageback/p/book/9781032047751

Se också http://www.the-virtual-mind.com/ för information om The Virtual Mind.

Every discovery contains an irrational element or a creative intuition.

Karl Popper, Austro-British philosopher (1902–1994), The Logic of Scientific Discovery

One of the most notable features that makes us humans a distinctly unique species is our creative capacity providing, at times, an extraordinary productivity and remarkable innovations, an ability that through quantum leap innovations has propelled us to the current digital age. However, generating creative breakthroughs are easier said than done, they appear less frequent and in a more scattered manner than desired, it seems that we have not yet fully cracked the creative code, allowing us to advance academia, commerce, and science entirely at our will. There is a puzzling irrational element to it which makes creativity hard to control, much to the dismay of authoritarian regimes, and as history has shown, it is not always easy to produce the expected results to solve elusive problems, and when breakthroughs do come, they tend to carry the hallmarks of serendipity. A lot of research has been put into understanding the creative process, given the great value it holds both commercially and intellectually, but the mechanism behind our creative capabilities has proven stubbornly difficult to fully explain. The critical junction of creative breakthroughs which often come through so-called Eureka moments, its activation and origin remain enigmatic, and deliberately trying to provoke it into action has often proven futile.

However, artificial intelligence with its aspiration to replicate the human mind is set to change all that. Key areas of artificial intelligence have been progressing remarkably swift and now allow for no longer only envisaging computational creativity as a future aspiration but actually embarking on the practical work with the design and development of tools that can be embedded into the human creative process. The integration between the human mind and its artificial counterpart is thereby perhaps nearing its completion. But what will that look like and will it be the missing link in the quest for a seamless man–machine interconnectivity?

AI for Creativity is a book for anyone with an interest in the advancement of artificial intelligence, notably the truly fascinating prospect of computational creativity. By being guided on how the human creative process works, the reader is equipped with an understanding of the design principles of the ongoing research and work on various applications that aspires to empower artificially induced creativity. The book provides a fascinating read of what is currently emerging in a truly cutting-edge area of artificial intelligence, how tools are being developed to enable computational creativity that holds the propensity to dramatically change our lives.

The book is structured in four chapters that detail the creative process and what has been ascertained about it. It also makes a deep dive into the enigmatic part of creativity that borders almost to the mystical and provides a plethora of perspectives on creativity from art to science. The book explains the in-depth conceptual sketch on what computational creativity might look like and how it is set to operate, and finally, it concludes with highlights of how the holistic man–machine connect is about to accelerate human creativity into an unprecedented phase.

With the currently unprecedented pace of technological innovations, we humans, now as always, something which history well testifies to, will eventually weaponise also these new contraptions. From where does this compulsion to constantly seek to improve our capacity for destruction come from? Is there some perverted inclination to develop arms of everything we can get our hands on, or it possibly just our deep-rooted survival instinct at play, triggering an urge to make sure we are at all times better armed than seemingly threatening tribes? Regardless of reason, we can now but notice how also this generation of technical milestones are being weaponised, and much whether we like it or not, it heralds yet another new era of warfare. This also include the innovations in artificial intelligence, which are one of the most talked about but probably least understood of the emerging new technologies.

From our traditional split of armed forces; army, navy, and from the early 20th century onwards including air force, over the last couple of decades, the capability to also engage in digital warfare can be added. Thus, questions need to be asked, do we as humans really know what we are doing when we now are weaponising artificial intelligence? Is it holding the propensity to change warfare in a way we fully have not been able to fathom yet? Are there unpleasant surprises of a collateral damage nature lurking? How exactly do artificial intelligence applications and tools introduce unique capacities that can be deployed in a military capacity? These are queries being pondered upon by war scientists in academia and war strategists in the armed forces throughout the world. It is to say the least a frontier science where most queries are open ended but are of such vital importance that they beget answers. When its potential capabilities have been fully ascertained and understood, it might come with profound insights that will change our perspective on warfare for the foreseeable future.

But before seeking to answer these questions, it is maybe be useful to take a few steps back. The proverbial father of modern warfare, Carl von Clausewitz, immortalised through his still widely read work On War that dates back two centuries, is most known for his broad brushed strategical advice, narrated through a political perspective. His strategies have been generic enough to have stood the test of times (which is perhaps the reason), and quite naturally have included a wide range of interpretations. Hence, modern strategic approaches have and are still taking cues from his writings. One of these were Blitzkrieg.Blitzkrieg is an interesting concept, the origins of the word is somewhat controversial, but its deployment was pretty straightforward, albeit for the time unconventional. It was a mixing and matching of armed capabilities seeking to optimise its force, often against a superior opponent, by finding the opportunity to break through a weak point in the defense line, schwerpunkt, thereby achieving victory quickly and decisively. Speed and the element of surprise were key factors in seeking to create a sensation of chock which would break the enemy’s will to fight. Thus, psychology played a decisive part in whether such audacious venture would be successful. It is interesting to note that in our times, it is not the exclusively the capacity of a military arsenal that decides the outcome of armed conflicts. A case in point are the nuclear deterrents that simply have become politically impossible to actually use, that also goes for more conventional approaches such as carpet bombings, a preferred tactic during World War II and the Vietnam War. Instead, over time, the reliance on non-military means seeking to gain an advantage over an adversary, and ultimately forcing him to surrender have advanced considerably. Many of these tactics are collectively labelled as psychological warfare. In essence, psychological warfare seeks to, through the utilisation of a variety of means typically in combination, break down the enemy’s will to act and defend himself. Usually, the creation of confusion and chock are the effects sought after to make resistance appear to be a futile endeavour. With artificial intelligence tools becoming increasingly advanced, and in many cases more humanlike, their potential in psychological warfare are being recognised, which means digital warfare can move beyond just shutting down IT systems into more all-encompassing hybrid war strategies. There is however a profound difference between the wars of yesteryears which were mainly interstate affairs, today these are notably rarer, instead there are proxy wars, grey zone conflicts and undefinable blurred criminal activities cum warfare, where commercial entities in a larger degree are being affected. This have made the dichotomies war-peace, and friend-foe much harder to establish. What are you to do if an enemy you do not even know you have covertly start to engage in hostile activities?  A war against you can be lost even before you even knew it started. Scenarios falling far outside known rules of engagements, but which have become increasingly frequent. And as any senior executive in any industry in any country will tell you, attacks and threats in the digital sphere top the list of risks they worry most about, no doubt having rendered them many sleepless nights. The digital capabilities to cause damage and destruction have taken us to unchartered territories, how can we defend ourselves against an invisible and unnamed enemy with the advantage of having both the timing and maybe the tools on his side? It has become a business-critical concern that can irreparably destroy an otherwise flourishing firm in an incredibly short time. This brings us to the gist of this book, namely how the weaponising of artificial intelligence can and will change how warfare is being conducted, and what impact it will have on the corporate world.

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Expressing oneself in art appears to be an integral part of human life and cave paintings are one of the earliest known traces that remain of our ancestors. But what is art really? Why is it so important to us, as it does not seem necessary for mere survival, yet its many formats play such a great role in our lives that it would be difficult to fathom a world void of it. Whilst the styles of art, through the multitude of ways it manifests, do fluctuate, there are some common denominators that reverberate and transcend cultures and time epochs, particularly the representations of the human condition and our reflections on the timeless question of life and death.

Enter artificial intelligence, perhaps soon as clever or even more so than us humans, but without the eternal spiritual ponderings on the meaning of life that are so fundamental in defining who we really are and play a decisive role in governing our behaviour, albeit often in ways beyond our comprehension. So, what does it do to art in its plethora of expressions when artificial intelligence can technically produce it better than us, but lacking the dimension that includes the elusive concept of a soul? AI for Arts is a book for anyone fascinated by the man-machine connect, an unstoppable evolution that is intertwining us with technology in an ever-greater degree, and where there is an increasing concern that it will be technology that comes out on top. Thus, presented here through perhaps its most esoteric form, namely art, this unfolding conundrum is brought to its apex, what is left of us humans if artificial intelligence surpasses us also when it comes to art? The articulation of an artificial intelligence art manifesto has long been overdue, so hopefully this book can fill a gap that will have repercussions not only for the aesthetic and philosophical considerations but possibly more so for the trajectory of artificial intelligence.
An AI Art Manifesto has long been overdue… A must read for anyone with an interest in AI, aesthetics, art and design. Written in co-operation with Daniel Hedblom and soon available on-line and in your local bookstore.

Knowing how to look is a way of inventing

Integrating Korzybski’s structural differential to enhance the process of abstraction in artificial intelligence and enable computational creativity

The introductory quote by the legendary Spanish painter Salvador Dali is indeed to the point, knowing how to look is a way of inventing as creativity often comes down to visualisation of various aspects of an object or matter. This ability to perform ocular abstraction, if only at the imaginary level, is not only a success factor for aspiring artists but also Albert Einstein testified how the ability to visualise creative elements always preceded his capacity to articulate it in text or formulae, in fact he viewed it as a pre-requisite.

The skill to abstract is a key part of human intelligence, however often easier said than done, this as it typically requires elevated cognitive levels. And in the ambition to develop artificial general intelligence, by emulating the human mental faculties, the capacity to originate and formulate quality creative thoughts is an important piece of this puzzle. Thus, to master abstraction will be a pivotal part in establishment of computational creativity, however few efforts have as of yet rendered much notable progress.

One auspicious approach is Alfred Korzybski’s notion about structural differential as a semantic tool to highlight inconsistencies in language and how it can be deployed to differentiate layers of abstraction in a structural way, hence the name. He constructed a remarkable contraption (as depicted) to facilitate the insights and discovery process of layered levels of abstraction applicable on any phenomena.

By digitising and integrating it with the more traditional means of abstraction, it provides an alternative path to achieving computational creativity and develop a tool to augment the innovation process. Do you want to know how?

Well, this is one of many interesting topics that is part of ‘A Practitioner’s Guide to Computational Creativity’ which due for publication in 2021. Watch this space for more information on how to pre-order your copy of the book, a definite ‘must’ for the professional and layman alike with an interest in the advancement of artificial intelligence!