The term “robotic art” is the most problematic for me. I feel it isn’t descriptive enough about the concept involved – the aesthetics of physical behavior – whereas the terms procedural portraits, characters, alien presence, narrative, and meta-art are more descriptive. Perhaps “Physical aesthetics” would be more descriptive?

What about genetic art, a-life art? Do you consider those separate from “AI”?

What about AI-based art that does interesting things with huge databases of information? (data mining, subversive uses of Google, etc.)

Finally, a question, which I’m sure comes up in such discussions on a regular basis: What is considered AI? At what point does an interactive computer program become considered AI? For example, Eliza has very little actual intelligence. Petit Mal, from what I understand, has little or no “AI” per se. Does a work simply have to have the intention of intelligence, or the illusion of intelligence, to be consider AI-based art? Or put another way, if a work simply addresses the concept of AI, but doesn’t necessarily have actual AI in it, is it AI-based art?

Also, that phenomenon of “once we figure it out and build it, it doesn’t seem like AI anymore” seems to come into play here.

The categories aren’t meant to be mutually exclusive. A single piece might participate in multiple categories. For example, Office Plant #1 is an alien presence and robotic art. Terminal Time is a procedural portrait, a narrative system, and since it constructs documentary histories, meta-art. I think of these categories as ways in which AI can be used in art, with any single piece potentially in multiple categories.

The term “robotic art” is the most problematic for me. Perhaps “Physical aesthetics” would be more descriptive?

I used “robotic art” because it is an already accepted category, growing as it did out of machine sculpture. I agree that it is not as descriptive a label as the others. “Physical aesthetics” is probably too broad in that the making of any physical object might be concerned with physical aesthetics. The real key is the aesthetics of physical motion, the relationship between the generated motions and the sensed environment, and the sense of intentionality behind the motions. If a piece consists only of physical motion, with no sensing or intentionality behind the motion, then we’re talking about machine art, but not robotic art (and certainly not AI-based art).

What about genetic art, a-life art? Do you consider those separate from “AI”?

I consider A-Life to be under the same general umbrella as AI. Saying that something is A-Life art tends to indicate the technique rather than the conceptual category. For example, someone might use a genetic algorithm for image generation – this would be meta-art. Someone might employ a simulated endocrine system coupled to a neural net to control the action of a creature – this is an alien presence (possibly a character).

What about AI-based art that does interesting things with huge databases of information? (data mining, subversive uses of Google, etc.)

Do you have a specific example in mind? It’s hard for me to think about without a specific example.

Finally, a question, which I’m sure comes up in such discussions on a regular basis: What is considered AI?

AI is a set of technical and rhetorical strategies for relating to computation. To say that a system is (or uses) AI is to say that interesting relationships have been established between system details and ordinary language used to describe the phenomenal world of humans (e.g. “goals”, “sensing”, “behavior”, “learning”, etc.). To say this more simply, I sometimes define AI as “The attempt to make machines do, what people and animals do, for all values of ‘do’.” The machine in question may be a digital computer, but doesn’t have to be. Some examples of things that people and animals do include: falling in love, feeling pain, having an argument, enjoying a sunset, packing for a trip, dancing, reading a book and talking to a friend about it, inventing scientific theories, writing a novel, and, occasionally, playing a game of chess or solving a logic problem.

Peti Mal makes use of behavioral robotics techniques and thus has as much AI as, for example, behavioral robots built in Rod Brook’s lab at MIT. And yes, these techniques are AI because they concern themselves with what it means to be an agent.

The details of whether any specific work counts as AI-based art depends on whether the piece makes use of computation in a way that relates to the phenomenal world of human experience (“goals”, “behavior”, “sensing”, etc.). The easiest way to do this is to use techniques that are already established as AI techniques (planning, neural nets, etc.) – the hard work of constructing the rhetorical machine that relates the technology to the human world has already been done. If a piece makes use of an entirely novel technique, then whether it is AI or not requires the artist to do the hard rhetorical work required to establish the technique as AI, to connect it to the human world – this is the same work that any AI researcher has to do when establishing a new technique. Which is to say that every AI system is doubled, consisting of a technical machine and a rhetorical machine. Both are necessary in order for the system to function.

machinista a.i. as art

this year with a focus on the machine as co-artist

More on my Art& AI efforts @

http://neon.1colony.com

best,

.pekka.