Authentic Intelligence

On the proposed battle between Artificial Intelligence vs. Authentic Stupidity, I like most everyone, take the side of Authentic Stupidity, and hurry to add that I too am working on it... and, in fact, I see computer generated art as still a human artifact.

The simplest description of this case, it seems, is in the visual realm.

Consider for a moment this progression: Primitive man drew with fingers in the sand; Cave men used pigmented mineral rocks on stone; and Artist materials changed to vellum, wood, or hemp, genuine hairbrushes, and oil paints for renaissance painters, onward; and then to plastics, for more modern art.

Degenerate one might speculate, seeing how man and creative force have become so far removed from bedrock. We've come a long way to the somewhat ironic return of a "digital" age, in which people now use their fingers to paint with virtual paintbrushes... and have neither paint, nor brush, nor canvas... only bits of code on glass or plexi.

(One might pause to reflect that we have reached as if a pinnacle of Realism, having seen everything as points of light. Pixels and illusion.)

That a person, or its ghost, that once was, can continue to generate artwork having provided the most recent creative technology with just a fragment of input is quite decadent. We have moved as if from laymen ever closer to godliness in our causal irresponsibility (*a creative oxymoron).

That is not, though, why I am vying on the side of Authentic Stupidity. I will always champion the weaker contingent, and it has to do with content, but not at all its creation. Everyone, or everything, if you prefer, creates. That is the Nature of our existence, its landscape. The Universe. That is not where the loss is. Or rather the fight worth having. Content is content.

What I'd like to point out is that Artificial Intelligence will never Appreciate.

Not with human fullness. I realize I am perhaps stupidly stating the obvious. AI will never look at a painting for pleasure; It will never touch a sculpture with its mind's eye; Or read a book with interest; Listen to a song to remember; Nor cry irrationally at a happy-ending-film. Computer generated images, words, music or videos, however, will continue to move us--emotionally--- but only for as long as we remain sensitive.

Whether that is Authentic Stupidity, or Authentic Intelligence, is another question.