Madeleine: Poetry and Art of an Artificial Intelligence
This article presents a project which is an experiment in the emerging field of human-machine artistic collaboration. The author/artist investigates responses by the generative pre-trained transformer (GPT-2) to poetic and esoteric prompts and curates them with elements of digital art created by the...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2022-09-01
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| Series: | Arts |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0752/11/5/83 |
| _version_ | 1797475464144486400 |
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| author | Graeme Revell |
| author_facet | Graeme Revell |
| author_sort | Graeme Revell |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This article presents a project which is an experiment in the emerging field of human-machine artistic collaboration. The author/artist investigates responses by the generative pre-trained transformer (GPT-2) to poetic and esoteric prompts and curates them with elements of digital art created by the text-to-image transformer DALL-E 2 using those same prompts; these elements are presented in the context of photographs featuring an anthropomorphic female avatar as the messenger of the content. The tripartite ‘cyborg’ thus assembled is an artificial intelligence endowed with the human attributes of language, art and visage; it is referred to throughout as <i>Madeleine</i>. The results of the experiments allowed the investigation of the following hypotheses. Firstly, evidence for a convergence of machine and human creativity and intelligence is provided by moderate degrees of lossy compression, error, ignorance and the lateral formulation of analogies more typical of GPT-2 than GPT-3. Secondly, the work provides new illustrations supporting research in the field of artificial intelligence that queries the definitions and boundaries of accepted categories such as cognition, intelligence, understanding and—at the limit—consciousness, suggesting that there is a paradigm shift away from questions such as “Can machines think?” to those of immediate social and political relevance such as “How can you tell a machine from a human being?” and “Can we trust machines?” Finally, appearance and epistemic emotions: surprise, curiosity and confusion are influential in the human acceptance of machines as intelligent and trustworthy entities. The project problematises the contemporary proliferation of feminised avatars in the context of feminist critical literature and suggests that the anthropomorphic avatar might echo the social and historical position of the Delphic oracle: the <i>Pythia</i>, rather than a disembodied search engine such as Alexa. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T20:44:30Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-34177606a3834bd78c2a56bca2ad6d1b |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2076-0752 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T20:44:30Z |
| publishDate | 2022-09-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Arts |
| spelling | doaj.art-34177606a3834bd78c2a56bca2ad6d1b2023-11-23T22:48:54ZengMDPI AGArts2076-07522022-09-011158310.3390/arts11050083Madeleine: Poetry and Art of an Artificial IntelligenceGraeme Revell0Independent Musician and ArtistThis article presents a project which is an experiment in the emerging field of human-machine artistic collaboration. The author/artist investigates responses by the generative pre-trained transformer (GPT-2) to poetic and esoteric prompts and curates them with elements of digital art created by the text-to-image transformer DALL-E 2 using those same prompts; these elements are presented in the context of photographs featuring an anthropomorphic female avatar as the messenger of the content. The tripartite ‘cyborg’ thus assembled is an artificial intelligence endowed with the human attributes of language, art and visage; it is referred to throughout as <i>Madeleine</i>. The results of the experiments allowed the investigation of the following hypotheses. Firstly, evidence for a convergence of machine and human creativity and intelligence is provided by moderate degrees of lossy compression, error, ignorance and the lateral formulation of analogies more typical of GPT-2 than GPT-3. Secondly, the work provides new illustrations supporting research in the field of artificial intelligence that queries the definitions and boundaries of accepted categories such as cognition, intelligence, understanding and—at the limit—consciousness, suggesting that there is a paradigm shift away from questions such as “Can machines think?” to those of immediate social and political relevance such as “How can you tell a machine from a human being?” and “Can we trust machines?” Finally, appearance and epistemic emotions: surprise, curiosity and confusion are influential in the human acceptance of machines as intelligent and trustworthy entities. The project problematises the contemporary proliferation of feminised avatars in the context of feminist critical literature and suggests that the anthropomorphic avatar might echo the social and historical position of the Delphic oracle: the <i>Pythia</i>, rather than a disembodied search engine such as Alexa.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0752/11/5/83poetryGPT-2GPT-3DALL-E 2natural language processingcyborg |
| spellingShingle | Graeme Revell Madeleine: Poetry and Art of an Artificial Intelligence Arts poetry GPT-2 GPT-3 DALL-E 2 natural language processing cyborg |
| title | Madeleine: Poetry and Art of an Artificial Intelligence |
| title_full | Madeleine: Poetry and Art of an Artificial Intelligence |
| title_fullStr | Madeleine: Poetry and Art of an Artificial Intelligence |
| title_full_unstemmed | Madeleine: Poetry and Art of an Artificial Intelligence |
| title_short | Madeleine: Poetry and Art of an Artificial Intelligence |
| title_sort | madeleine poetry and art of an artificial intelligence |
| topic | poetry GPT-2 GPT-3 DALL-E 2 natural language processing cyborg |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0752/11/5/83 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT graemerevell madeleinepoetryandartofanartificialintelligence |