DailyDirt: Computers Creating Content...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Wed, May 27th 2015 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Artificial intelligence is getting better and better. Computers can beat humans at all kinds of games without breaking a sweat. To stay ahead of the machines, we keep moving the goalposts on what qualifies as "strong AI" by coming up with more and more tests that computers can't quite pass. If you think software will never be able to write poetry as well as Shakespeare, perhaps you'll have to modify your test in a few years.

A machine learning algorithm (named DeepBeat) writes rap lyrics based on its analysis of over a hundred human rap artists. Artificial intelligence might be able to create some rhyme schemes that are far more complex than many humans, but it's not so good at conveying a coherent story or message with its skills (yet). [url]
There's a computer program that writes formulaic sexist jokes, modeled after some human comedians who use the same technique. These algorithmically-generated jokes are generally bad puns -- such as "I like my women like I like my gas ... natural" and "I like my men like I like my court ... superior." [url]
Computer generated images (CGI) are usually easy to spot because they don't look like a human could draw them by hand, but what about cartoons drawn by an algorithm that was specifically made to look hand-drawn? Randall Munroe might be able to go on an indefinite vacation if he can combine the right algorithms to replace himself. [url]

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Filed Under: ai, algorithms, artificial intelligence, cartoons, cgi, comedians, deepbeat, jokes, machine learning, puns, rap lyrics, turing test, xkcd

8 Comments

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Olpattycakes, 27 May 2015 @ 5:31pm

Can you patent / copyright AI created content?
Can you copyright or patent AI created content?

You can't copyright a picture if a monkey takes it....or his uncle for that matter.

How does this apply to AI?

What if you wrote AI software and it would eventually decide when and of what to take pictures of, could those pictures be copyrighted, by a company.... A human.... Or the AI itself
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Gwiz, 27 May 2015 @ 5:45pm

I've long pondered whether The Masnick isn't Artificial Stupidity.
Surely no rational adult human could write an article with childishly wrong assertion that purchasing a DVD means that you own "the movie", or the "content":
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150422/23110430764/dvd-makers-say-that-you-dont-really -own-dvds-you-bought-thanks-to-copyright.shtml

But there it is! Since 1997, The Masnick can't break ideological programming even while claiming to support copyright. It's doing same thing over and over.
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- That One Guy (profile), 27 May 2015 @ 7:29pm
  
  I like how you think you're 'proving' anything beyond that you are suffering from a crippling obsession with Mike with your posts.
  
  Seriously, get some help, it's clear you need it.
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Gracey (profile), 27 May 2015 @ 6:31pm

So, um ... can one file a DMCA notice against an AI?

Can an AI sue someone else for copyright violations?

We got a whole new world of crap on the way I guess (as if the current weren't bad enough).
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- Anonymous Coward, 27 May 2015 @ 6:43pm
  
  Re:
  You can for the "rap writer" as it takes existing rap lyrics and reorders them into inhumanly tight rhyme structures, but each individual line has a human author.
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- That One Guy (profile), 27 May 2015 @ 7:26pm
  
  Re:
  Automated algorithms are already considered 'people' as far as sending DMCA claims, so it wouldn't be that much of a stretch.
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Rekrul, 27 May 2015 @ 8:54pm

Back in the early 1980s, a program called Racter wrote a novel called The Policeman's Beard is Half Constructed.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 May 2015 @ 7:10am

Can't wait for robot politicians.

So, if we built a bunch of robots (with no knowledge of their creator's history or ethics) and locked them away with each other for a few years, what would we find when we opened the door? Democrats, republicans, socialists, communists, fascists, a parliamentary democracy, a dictatorship, or a bunch of dead robots ripped to shreds by each other ?
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