THE “ART” OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ~ hehe um yea yup... we R "head~in" the right way Lol ....ain't that right ....hal ? ....this way ? umm hummmm
It has been quite some time since I blogged about an article from our friends at The Daily Bell,
not because I do not find their commentary to be intriguing or even
oftentimes thought-provoking, but rather because, as regular readers
here know, the blogs on this site are to some extent community-driven. I
blog about the articles people have sent me that they have found
interesting, and I invest some time each week going through the week's
accumulation of articles, looking through them, trying to notice
patterns. Sometimes such patterns result, which makes my "sorting" job
easy, as I tend to blog about stories that several people have noticed
and passed along. Other times, the story is so significant, that I have
to blog about it, and this very brief, but thought provoking article
from The Daily Bell shared by Mr. V.T. and Ms. K.M. is precisely one of those articles, and it concerns modern "art", and artificial intelligence.
My interest here is both cultural and
personal. Those who know me personally know that one of my biggest
complaints is the soullessness of modern western, and particularly
American, culture. Our music is flat, one dimensional, and for the most
part, lacking in any expression of transcendent objective beauty or
virtue. Our visual arts, for the most part, have been corrupted by
modernism and post-modernism to the extent that canvases of nothing but
pure white paintings hang in museums of modern "art." The films that
Hollyweird churns out are endless political commentary, posturing, and
virtue signaling (almost always coming from the "left"), and are filled
with gore, special effects to make up for the lack of story, plot, and
development, all of which is "acted" by equally one dimensional actors
and actresses playing flat characters that are more caricatures than
human beings; virtue is reviled, vice extolled, beauty is bastardized
and ugliness and mediocrity are celebrated and extolled.
Recently I wrote a book titled Microcosm and Medium,
which details some of my concerns with such matters, and the underlying
cosmologies behind various artistic schools or periods. My intention
was to show the relationship between the arts and the popular topic of
"mind control," since the arts are both an expression of cosmologies and
metaphysical presuppositions, as well as soft forms of mind
manipulation. To make a very long story and point ridiculously short, I
pointed out in that book that the arts were deliberately targeted in the
post-World War Two world by the various intelligence agencies, and that
they deliberately chose a form or style of artistic expression both in
the visual arts and in music that produced clinically dissociative
states, rather than integrative states, in the population that viewed or
listened to them. Rather than trying to integrate the rational mind
with the "under mind" of the emotions and passions of human nature, a
wedge was driven between the two in these styles, and by driving and
promoting such art, the corresponding dissociative states were driven
into society. The art reduced man to a machine, to be hacked apart and
explored in Cubist slices of reality.
So if man is but a machine, and his art
nothing but the result of algorithms and "electromagnetics" and
"chemistry", a machine should be able to produce credible works of art
and music, right?
Wrong. I forego my usual "high octane
speculation" today, and have resorted to this relatively long prologue
to this article, because I want the readers to see an example of the
anti-human trend produced by "artificial intelligence." Like all such
programs, this has been produced ultimately by people who
programmed and wrote the algorithms to begin with, and that should tell
us something about the nihilistic anti-human trends so evident in
today's "culture." I forego my usual high octane speculation, because I
cannot improve upon The Daily Bell's own assessment of these
productions. I don't know about you, but I find them profoundly
disturbing. Here is the article, and I will see you on the flip side...
The Terrifying Paintings by ArtificiaI Intelligence
By Peter De Boer - August 31, 2018https://www.thedailybell.com/all-articles/news-analysis/the-terrifying-paintings-by-artificiai-intelligence/
And its one hell of a mutilated abortion. Words that spring to mind: monstrous, from hell, distorted, terrifying, soulless…
Its like self-portraits of a family of aristocrats if they were each and every one of them a soul-sucking demon.
If this is what Artificial Intelligence has to offer in terms of art, if these images are the seeds of that future, count me out. A French art collective, selling these little monsters at Christie’s for beaucoup bucks, fine.
But I can’t tell… this collection is called Obvious. Obviously what? Obviously a horror show?
What does this tell us of the nature of artificial intelligence?
Evidence of the soul.
Look long and hard at these images, and think of the emotions that rise. Art may be subjective, but there appears to be a universal Élan vital that accompanies it, especially the best works.
True art brings forth human emotions. It is the artist speaking to you through an irrational form. A form that subverts whatever prefaces your own existence to strike at your core. It brings forth the non-algorithmic. The representationally infinite. The Golden Ratio. And it transmits from one human, a human who has tapped into that, to another, a language where none is needed to understand.
Even what could be considered sinister or horrible works such as Rubens’ Saturn speaks to us.
It’s relatable, and tells us something, warns us. And because it comes from us, it can be appreciated. Understood. Respected as part of the human spectrum.
But this stuff, it should serve as a warning. This is the soul of A.I., and it tells us we are staring into the abyss. Into nothing. Which is what is so horrifying here.
Even the very term Artificial Intelligence should clue us in. It’s artificial. As opposed to real intelligence. Because there is more to intelligence than simply complex math equations. We are not just biological computers as the technocrats would have us believe. But if we were, this is the art we would create.
This art fails on every level. As a general attempt to emulate greater works, this art sucks worse than a black hole.
Aesthetically, it would probably be enjoyed most hanging in a Rothschild manor.
But mostly it fails because it does not include the incalculable.
And you can say that about most art produced these days.
Film corporations produce movies based on profit calculations. The spirit of the filmmakers is so often playing second fiddle if at all. No wonder most films are throwaway trash.
Meanwhile, Modern Art museums are busy twisting our minds into accepting garbage as art. Or art as garbage. I’m not sure which…
And now this – A.I. art slithering from the bowels of the netherworld. Coming from a place of nothing. Planting within us the seed of nothing.
So look long and hard at these images of the abyss. And let’s remember what one of our greatest ancestors said:
“And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee. ” – Nietzsche
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