Terry,
On Sep 6, 2013, at 1:57 AM, Terence Love <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> <snip Gunnar wrote> design (and here I mean human creative activity meant to
> change the state of things) is an art (here I mean activity that is complex
> enough that it defies being replaced by stock algorithms.)
[snip]
> The reality is that humans behave very predictably, and have a limited
> range of responses that they apply in a very routine fashion. This is
> especially obvious with creative professionals. For example, when someone
> has become skilled at creative design, they develop a style. You can see
> this in the way that on one hand people can recognise that routine behaviour
> ('Hey that is so Starck', or 'Yup, that book cover looks great it must be a
> Martin Salisbury cover').
[snip]
> This all makes creating algorithms to represent that human Design and Art
> behaviour straightforward
It is extremely difficult to predict the future. It is merely difficult to predict the past. Identifying stylistic ticks to uncover who is Shakespeare and who isn't Shakespeare is an easier task than creating a Bardbot.
Your post does, however, point out yet another hole in the romantic notion of creativity. It parallels the problem with those who say that science explains some things and religion explains the rest: If scientific knowledge expands and unless we invent new unexplained things, this means a constantly shrinking God (which is not the best condition for an all-powerful deity.)
If we define design, art, creativity, etc. in terms of special human activity and the things we claim fit into those categories are done more and more by machines, we may be left with a shrinking human specialness.
I guess the comeback on the science/God territorial dispute is to say that God is big enough to lose a lot of territory without the reduction being significant. We'll have to see how big human specialness is.
Gunnar
Gunnar Swanson
East Carolina University
graphic design program
http://www.ecu.edu/cs-cfac/soad/graphic/index.cfm
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Gunnar Swanson Design Office
1901 East 6th Street
Greenville NC 27858
USA
http://www.gunnarswanson.com
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+1 252 258-7006
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