DailyDirt: Creative Robots Replacing Artists And Writers...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Thu, Sep 24th 2015 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Robots are taking away valuable jobs from more and more humans everyday. People used to connect phone calls. People used to categorize links on the internet (and some still do). But those jobs have been largely replaced by more efficient algorithms. Jobs that require some human creativity are supposed to be immune from an attack of automation, but it really depends on what kind of creativity.

Algorithms that mimic Vincent Van Gogh's style -- or other artist's styles -- will be able to create enormous libraries of digital artwork. If non-human artists' work is in the public domain, maybe we'll see an insane amount of clip art in the near future. [url]
Japanese fembot HRP-4C can sing like human pop stars. This isn't new, but when nobody really recognizes the composers behind pop music, will anyone care when the voices are artificially generated, too? [url]
Turning data into written text isn't exactly a creative task, so humans might not be required to do it for much longer. We've seen computers writing news stories, so it shouldn't be too surprising that a bot is writing millions of words every day now. These bots aren't writing the great American novel, but maybe if we introduce them to a lot of virtual monkeys banging away on typewriters.... [url]

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Filed Under: artificial intelligence, automation, clip art, composers, fembot, pop music, robots, shakespeare, vincent van gogh

11 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 24 Sep 2015 @ 5:42pm

Will we have algorithmic copyright and IP lawyers too? And a virtual East Texas for them to play in?

Perhaps as long as we can shut them all away in their own algorithmic universe, only occasionally peeping in out of curiosity and to tune them, we can think of moving the human versions out to the virtual world too. The rest of us can then get on with inventing new stuff.
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kallethen, 24 Sep 2015 @ 6:30pm

Virtual composers too
I forget who and where, but I recall reading an article a couple of years ago about a guy who wrote a program to compose music. Initially, he had it mimicking the styles of famous composers (much like the first story of a program that mimicked Van Gogh), but then he started having it come up with it's own compositions.
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Udom (profile), 24 Sep 2015 @ 7:46pm

Art
Much depends on how you define Art. Computers can make intricate designs, combine colours according to instructions and mimic particular styles. But Art is far more than that, subtley touching chords in various parts of the brain that are beyond the reach of reason, (best example being the amygdala). There are more connections in the brain than there are stars in the universe. Its a computer that since the earliest members of our genus has taken 88,000 generations to develop. Having a computer create art is in the same range as having a bear ride a bicycle in a circus ring.
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T Cooke, 24 Sep 2015 @ 10:16pm

Programming Music
I started programming music in 2002 after graduating college and dedicated my life to it because I thought it was the future. I was also just perennially inspired to create so it made perfect sense. Here I am 13 years later and I just released on tcookemusik. I just feel what I do is more like painting than it is being a musician.

I think your article touches on some issues that are an extension of what is already commonplace methodology for purely commercial needs. I hadn't thought of that before, but I would agree that if lowers costs like cutting an expensive workforce, you bet.
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Rekrul, 25 Sep 2015 @ 12:35am

I can't wait for quantum computers! Just write a program to generate every possible combination of 640x480 pixels and then copyright all the results that don't match an existing image. You can then sue pretty much anyone who creates a computer image because they will be copying at least part of your work.

Technically, you could do that today, but even with the fastest computers available, it would take centuries to do.
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Ninja (profile), 25 Sep 2015 @ 3:36am

Hmmm... The obvious difference is that computer generated stuff would have a much higher output. Hopefully things generated by an algorithm fall directly into public domain or this could get ugly pretty quickly considering current copyright laws and the garbage that benefit from it (the MAFIAA).
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Sep 2015 @ 5:38am

Re: "ugly pretty"
Since today the vast majority of legal copyright infringement notices are computer generated and sent out electronically, by the millions, without any human oversight, yet are still considered valid legal documents, it's not a huge step for mass-produced computer-generated music to be awarded legal recognition.

In additional to robo-copyrighting all musical compositions spewed out by an algorithm, the algorithms themselves could be patented (or perhaps even trademarked) so that any music with a similar 'look and feel' would be considered infringing.

This might be a great opportunity for a new collection society. When almost every conceivable arrangement of notes and words has already been generated by a computer and copyrighted, human composers who actually market music will be infringing almost by default, no matter what new original art they might come up with.
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DannyB (profile), 25 Sep 2015 @ 5:49am

You're behind the times
If you were watching what Hollywood has put out over the last decade it would be clear to you that robots have already completely replaced writers and artists. Sometimes even actors.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Sep 2015 @ 7:09am

Re:
I can't wait for quantum computers! Just write a program to generate every possible combination of 640x480 pixels and then copyright all the results that don't match an existing image. You can then sue pretty much anyone who creates a computer image because they will be copying at least part of your work.

I know you're joking, but a quantum computer wouldn't speed up that task. And if you were to do such a task, then you would have some rather nasty legal problems. For instance of the approximately 8.954e2219433 images you would generate, there would be an immense number of instances of child porn. And to show how large the number listed above really is, the estimated number of fundamental particles in the observable universe is somewhere between 1e80 and 1e85.
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Michael Ho (profile), 25 Sep 2015 @ 12:41pm

Re: Virtual composers too
If you're a loyal DailyDirt reader...

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110715/11112415107/dailydirt-creative-robots-generating -art-overload.shtml

Perhaps you're thinking of Emily Howell?
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Stephen, 28 Sep 2015 @ 11:36pm

Cool New Tools for Art Forgers & Would-be Pop Idol Managers
Algorithms that mimic Vincent Van Gogh's style -- or other artist's styles -- will be able to create enormous libraries of digital artwork.
Sounds like an art forger's wet dream.
Japanese fembot HRP-4C can sing like human pop stars.
Can the days of human pop stars be on the way out? Why would a manager want to deal with a temperamental, drug-soaked human once manager-friendly fembots become available?
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