Computer: Muse or Amanuensis?

ABSTRACT

Most computer systems were, until recently, only graphic recording and output devices (electronic amanuensis) and though possibly useful, not significantly changing the role of art or the artist. The increasing interest in using machine intelligence as part of the creative activity has stimulated new developments in which at the very least the machine can be seen as a catalyst (electronic muse). Nevertheless, artists have hung tenaciously to their traditional roles and critics to their traditional criteria for evaluation. But the logical extension of the use of machine intelligence might more challengingly suggest a change in the nature of creativity and a change in the roles of the relationship of the artists creativity to that of the machine. It is the contention of the author of this paper that the use of such techniques as evolutionary and learning programs will inevitably raise fundamental questions about the role of the artist and the role of aesthetic judgement. It may force a division between evaluating the creative act at a conceptual level (the role of the artist ?) and the act of creativity at the level of an individual evolved manifestation (the computer’s role ?).