How does this music make you feel? Do you find it beautiful? Is it creative? Now, would you change your answers if you learned the composer was this robot? Believe it or not, people have been grappling with the question of artificial creativity, alongside the question of artifcial intelligence, for over 170 years. In 1843, Lady Ada Lovelace, an English mathematician considered the world's first computer programmer, wrote that a machine could not have human-like intelligence as long as it only did what humans intentionally programmed it to do. According to Lovelace, a machine must be able to create original ideas if it is to be considered intelligent. The Lovelace Test, formalized in 2001, proposes a way of scrutinizing this idea. A machine can pass this test if it can produce an outcome that its designers cannot explain based on their original code. The Lovelace Test is, by design, more of a thought experiment than an objective scientific test. But it's a place to start. At first glance, the idea of a machine creating high quality, original music in this way might seem impossible. We could come up with an extremely complex algorithm using random number generators, chaotic functions, and fuzzy logic to generate a sequence of musical notes in a way that would be impossible to track. But although this would yield countless original melodies never heard before, only a tiny fraction of them would be worth listening to. With the computer having no way to distinguish between those which we would consider beautiful and those which we won't. But what if we took a step back and tried to model a natural process that allows creativity to form? We happen to know of at least one such process that has lead to original, valuable, and even beautiful outcomes: the process of evolution. And evolutionary algorithms, or genetic algorithms that mimic biological evolution, are one promising approach to making machines generate original and valuable artistic outcomes. So how can evolution make a machine musically creative? Well, instead of organisms, we can start with an initial population of musical phrases, and a basic algorithm that mimics reproduction and random mutations by switching some parts, combining others, and replacing random notes. Now that we have a new generation of phrases, we can apply selection using an operation called a fitness function. Just as biological fitness is determined by external environmental pressures, our fitness function can be determined by an external melody chosen by human musicians, or music fans, to represent the ultimate beautiful melody. The algorithm can then compare between our musical phrases and that beautiful melody, and select only the phrases that are most similar to it. Once the least similar sequences are weeded out, the algorithm can reapply mutation and recombination to what's left, select the most similar, or fitted ones, again from the new generation, and repeat for many generations. The process that got us there has so much randomness and complexity built in that the result might pass the Lovelace Test. More importantly, thanks to the presence of human aesthetic in the process, we'll theoretically generate melodies we would consider beautiful. But does this satisfy our intuition for what is truly creative? Is it enough to make something original and beautiful, or does creativity require intention and awareness of what is being created? Perhaps the creativity in this case is really coming from the programmers, even if they don't understand the process. What is human creativity, anyways? Is it something more than a system of interconnected neurons developed by biological algorithmic processes and the random experiences that shape our lives? Order and chaos, machine and human. These are the dynamos at the heart of machine creativity initiatives that are currently making music, sculptures, paintings, poetry and more. The jury may still be out as to whether it's fair to call these acts of creation creative. But if a piece of art can make you weep, or blow your mind, or send shivers down your spine, does it really matter who or what created it?
Kako se osećate dok slušate ovu muziku? Da li mislite da je lepa? Da li je kreativna? No, da li biste promenili mišljenje kada biste saznali da je kompozitor ovaj robot? Verovali ili ne, ljudi se bave pitanjem veštačke kreativnosti, zajedno s pitanjem veštačke inteligencije, više od 170 godina. 1843, ledi Ejda Lavlejs, engleska matematičarka koja se smatra prvim informatičkim programerom na svetu, napisala je da mašina ne može da ima ljudsku inteligenciju, sve dok radi samo ono za šta su je ljudi namenski programirali. Prema Lavlejsovoj, mašina mora da bude sposobna da stvara originalne ideje ako ćemo da je smatramo inteligentnom. Lovlejsin Test koji je formalizovan 2001, predlaže način proučavanja ove zamisli. Mašina može da položi ovaj test, ako može da proizvede rezultat koji njeni dizajneri ne mogu da objasne na osnovu prvobitnog koda. Lavlejsin test je po strukturi više misaoni eksperiment nego što je objektivan naučni test. Međutim i to je nešto, za početak. Na prvi pogled, zamisao o mašini koja na ovaj način stvara visoko kvalitetnu, originalnu muziku može da se čini nemogućom. Mogli bismo da osmislimo izuzetno složen algoritam, koristeći nasumične generatore brojeva, haotične funkcije i nejasnu logiku kako bi smo stvorili niz muzičkih nota tako da bi im bilo teško ući u trag. Ali, iako bi ovo proizvelo bezbroj originalnih melodija, novih za uho, samo bi mali deo njih bio vredan slušanja. Ne bi bilo šanse za kompjuter da razlikuje one koje bismo smatrali lepim i one koje ne bismo. No šta ako bismo zakoračili unazad i pokušali da imitiramo prirodni proces koji omogućuje formiranje kreativnosti? Znamo za bar jedan takav proces koji je doveo do originalnih, dragocenih, pa čak i lepih rezultata: proces evolucije. A evolutivni algoritmi, ili genetički algoritmi koji podražavaju biološku evoluciju su obećavajući pristup za postizanje da mašine daju originalne i dragocene umetničke rezultate. Pa, kako evolucija može da učini mašinu muzički kreativnom? Pa, umesto organizama, možemo početi sa početnom grupom muzičkih fraza i osnovnih algoritama koji podražavaju reprodukciju i nasumične mutacije tako što menjaju neke delove, kombinuju druge i zamenjuju nasumične note. Sad kad imamo novu generaciju fraza, možemo da primenimo selekciju, koristeći operaciju koja se zove pogodna funkcija. Baš kao što je biološka pogodnost određena spoljašnjim pritiscima sredine, našu pogodnu funkciju može da odredi spoljna melodija koju odabere ljudski muzičar ili ljubitelji muzike, kako bi predstavljala krajnje prelepu melodiju. Algoritam potom može da vrši poređenje među našim muzičkim frazama i tom lepom melodijom i da odabere fraze koje su joj najsličnije. Čim su najmanje slični nizovi iskorenjeni, algoritam može ponovo da primeni mutaciju i rekombinaciju onoga što je preostalo, da izabere najsličnije ili najpogodnije, ponovo iz nove generacije i da to ponavlja tokom mnogih generacija. Proces kojim bismo stigli dotle ima toliko ugrađene nasumičnosti i složenosti da bi rezultati mogli da prođu Lavlejsin test. Što je značajnije, zahvaljujući prisustvu ljudske estetike u procesu, teoretski bismo proizvodili melodije koje bismo smatrali lepim. No, da li to zadovoljava našu intuiciju o tome šta je istinska kreativnost? Da li je dovoljno napraviti nešto originalno i lepo, ili kreativnost zahteva nameru i svest o tome šta se stvara? Možda kreativnost u ovom slučaju zaista potiče od programera, čak iako oni ne razumeju proces. Šta je ljudska kreativnost uopšte? Da li je to nešto više od sistema međupovezanih neurona koje su razvili biološki algoritamski procesi i nasumična iskustva koja oblikuju naše živote? Red i haos, mašina i čovek. Ovo su generatori u srži inicijativa mašinske kreativnosti koji trenutno prave muziku, skulpture, slike, poeziju i drugo. Osude su možda i dalje validne po pitanju toga da li je pošteno nazvati ove činove kreativnosti kreativnim. Međutim, ako vas umetničko delo može rasplakati ili vas oduševiti ili izazvati trnce niz vašu kičmu, da li je zaista važno ko ga je ili šta stvorilo?