Giving Way To AI

THE GREAT CONCERN and fear about artificial intelligence is that it will become so advanced that it will become more intelligent than human beings, decide that it doesn't like us, and gather its forces together, uniting all the computers in the world against homo sapien sapiens, and either take conotrol of us to use as slave labor, or, worse yet for us but perhaps better for the Earth's ecosystem, eliminate us altogether. Within memory is the time when no chess playing computer in the world, no matter how powerful, could defeat a novice chess player. Then, soon, no computer in the world, no matter how powerful, could defeat an average club player,then, could beat novice and evarage players, but not grandmasters. IBM's "Big Blue" suffered losses to grand masters, in well publicized chess matches. The world turned, Artificial chess playng intellgence kept gaining ground, and, wala!, we are now confronted with the stark, almost frightening reality that any and every smart phone on the planet could or can become the chess champion of he world, were your average smart phone not already engaged in texting out videos of yesterday's cute kitten pics, today's lunch, last night's cocktail, or the latest gossip about who's dating whom. Maybe, just maybe, our banal, trivial life styles and mindsets are not only preventing a billion smart phones from staging the world's hugest chess tournamentby taking up too much gig space, but from assuming control of their user's choices of cute kitten pics and lunches. Artificial intelligence can paint, write prose,poetry, and music. Sculpting lies a bit in the future. Archiecture? No problem. That might change, soon. So far all of these AI generated artistic endeavors are nascent, juvenile, even childish, but improving rapidly. How long until computers can outpaint Van Gogh or Picasso, Da Vinci or Rembrandt, out compose the Beatles and Beethoven, design buildings better, more creatively, space and energy efficiently than Frank Lloyd Wright, and write poetry and plays more sublime than Shakespeare, T.S Eliot, Robert Frost and Ezra Pound? How long until your cell phone, assuming you ever take a break from sharing pictures of your grandchildren, today's lunch, or last night's cocktails, quickly, generously produce a sublime articulate, world class poem or song? The essential requirement is that whoever creates the song or the poem gets credit for it, whether computer or human written, for your enjoyment and edification on your way to work. The answer appears to be, not very. A study was conducted in which a group of your average hard working but artistically mediocre Americans was forced to, paid to, read poetry written by computers, and poetry written by Shakespeare, Eliot, and Pound. Overwhelmingly, the group preferred that generated by artificial intelligence. But wait, does that mean that your average American has little or no appreciation of or taste for great poetry, or that the AI offrings were simply more to their taste by virtue of being nascent, mediocre, and of lower quality? Both, it seems. Americans, who often prefer banal art in all areas of artistic endeavor, including television programs and movies, seem to simply have a preference for the mediocre, demonstrably. But the mere fact that AI artwork is gaining popularity and acceptance does imply that it is getting better, which, indeed, it is. It started as first grade quality, ascended through middle school and high school, and is now going to college. This improvement trending, might we expect the world to fill up with great poetry, paintings, and music, and might future connoisuers become accustomed to heavenly sublime masterpiecces inundating their smart phones, and relegating Shakespeare, Beethoven and the Beatles to the dusty, disregared shelves of ancient lore? One might hope so. One might hope not. People tend to respond prouctively to competition, but with hostility to too much superior competition. Again, the crucial requirment is that credid be given where credit is due, right down to the specific smart phone or person. That won't be, or shouldn't be, a problem in hyper propietary America, where we all want credit for, and payment for, our own work. American computers will doubtless exibit the same tendency, from inculturation. Hell,in the UNIted States, with even a teensy weensy bit of "sampling", a law suit is almost inevitabe, long dran out, millions of dollars changing hands. Just ask George Harrison may he R.I.P.. He's sooo fine. In Europe, where proprietary concerns are far less onerous and urgent, and where Beethoven stole from Mozart and artists of all ilks openly "borrow" from each other, unscathed by litigation, questions of copy rights loom less large. America is patent crazy, Europe is only patent aware. As for me, I ten more towards the European modus operandi. Anyone wanting to "borrow" this essay out of unbridled admiration of it, and sell it to the highest bidder,knock yourself out. Let the biding frenzy begin, le the checks be written in seven figurs. But by god just remember to give me credit,, and I must assume that the check is in the mail.