Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Evening of Artificial Creativity, 28.10.2016

In cooperation with the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, STATE presented an evening with talks, artist presentations and performances all about Artificial Creativity, ending the academy’s two day program How do new ideas come into being? Analog thinking in science and art — Leibniz’s idea of invention that asks the question: Can AI be creative? Or is creativity one of the few realms where humans cannot be replaced by machines, software and automation?

The program kicked off with the screening of Sunspring, a short science fiction movie written entirely by AI, followed by a keynote lecture by Margaret Boden, research professor of cognitive science at the Sussex University's Department of Informatics and author of Creativity and Art: Three Roads to Surprise.

Boden's talk gave an overview of, and deeper insight into, how and why creativity as a fundamental feature of human intelligence poses challenges to the way Artificial Intelligence makes decisions. What is currently possible in terms of AI techniques to create new ideas, and what is not? What does “artificial creativity” mean, and how can or does the notion we have of it challenge our idea of creativity and creation? Does artificial intelligence and creativity pose a threat to one of the seemingly most inherent human features (creativity and artistic creation), and could it do so in the near future — and what ways of co-existence or even collaboration between human and artificial creativity could be envisioned for a future of creative expression?

In conversation with Margaret Boden, these and many other questions were explored by Ross Goodwin — AI researcher at New York University and creator of Sunspring's AI script writer, and the artists Florian Dohmann (⅓ of the art collective YQP) and Roman Lipski.

Their musings on how to engage with creative AI will develop a reflective space in which the analytic, critic and prophetic shades and hues of artistic expressions will come into exchange with cutting-edge scientific research and the audiences’ questions.

The evening ended with two performances: two actors interpreting a new script written by Goodwin’s AI during the event, followed by a performance by Gamut Inc, an ensemble for custom-made computer-driven mechanical music-machines that develops specialized live-control software which allows playing techniques not accessible to human performers.