AI — Note #0001: Start of the Journey
What’s led to this
Over fifteen years ago I started looking at the field of Glitch Aesthetics, luckily, through some graft and amazing collaboration opportunities this culminated in a dissertation, a book http://amzn.to/29nd5x4 and the ultimate academic Glitch, an indefinitely intercalated PhD.
In analysing my journey, there was a fascination there that had started many years before, this I believe led me to each of those outcomes. So it’s a formal pattern for me that’s paid off in the past. For a while I’ve been trying to figure out which of the things I’m interested in warrants further investigation. Thankfully I think I’ve pinpointed it, or at least the broad strokes.
Creative Artificial Intelligence
Statement of Intent
I’m interested in exploring Artificial Intelligence in the broadest creative sense initially, then focussing it down into an area which might be ambitious enough to be challenging and interesting and worthy enough to spend time working on. I know I get quite fixated on things so I’m consciously choosing something with broader implications and a larger practical bearing on what I do in my role as a designer and stealth academic.
Currently, I’m interested in how AI can be used to augmented the human intellect or explore a creative process and I’m experimenting in this area and studying as much as I can get my hands on.
Here are some large swathes I’d like to mine in. It’s important to note, when I mention AI, I’m using the term quite loosely to define any output that seems artificially intelligent.
- Exploring and understanding why AI interests us
- Studying existing and historical Creative AI projects
- AI to assist Generative Creative Output (Visual, Written, Sculptural)
- AI and Computational Complexity
- AI and the nuances of Language
- AI’s Relationship with Human Computation
- AI in Behavioural and Mental Health
- AI in Politics & Cultural Programming
Example projects
Sometimes concrete examples even half baked ones are better at describing the end outcomes I’m interested in. So here are a few ideas, I’m sure there are several examples of things like this that others have done and if anyone wants to take a stab at making one, by all means.
- An AI which studies poetry by two poets and uses Markov chains to write it’s own poetry influenced by the source material.
- An AI system which takes a journey between two locations, and provides a linguistic and poetic response about the journey. Wikipedia’ing articles about town along the way and infusing its narrative with curious anecdotes it finds.
- An AI bot that listens out for people wanting to buy stuff on Twitter, with phrases like ‘Where can I find a …to buy for….’ and autosuggests items you could buy with it’s own affiliate links.
- An AI bot that analyses the things you say and write and do during the course of the day in realtime and measures your body responses to give you a heads up on potential Cognitive Behavioural Techniques you can use to combat a particular mental health issue like OCD.
