2003-04-26

... ?

Art

AARON exists; it generates objects that hold their own more than adequately, in human terms, in any gathering of similar, but human-produced, objects, and it does so with a stylistic consistency that reveals an identity as clearly as any human artist's does. It does these things, moreover, without my own intervention. I do not believe that AARON constitutes an existence proof of the power of machines to think, or to be creative, or to be self-aware, to display any of those attributes coined specifically to explain something about ourselves. It constitutes an existence proof of the power of machines to do some of the things we had assumed required thought, and which we still suppose would require thought, and creativity, and self-awareness, of a human being. If what AARON is making is not art, what is it exactly, and in what ways, other than its origin, does it differ from the "real thing?" If it is not thinking, what exactly is it doing? - Harold Cohen, the further exploits of AARON, Painter