Sign up for our daily briefing
Make your busy days simpler with Axios AM/PM. Catch up on what's new and why it matters in just 5 minutes.
Stay on top of the latest market trends
Subscribe to Axios Markets for the latest market trends and economic insights. Sign up for free.
Sports news worthy of your time
Binge on the stats and stories that drive the sports world with Axios Sports. Sign up for free.
Tech news worthy of your time
Get our smart take on technology from the Valley and D.C. with Axios Login. Sign up for free.
Get the inside stories
Get an insider's guide to the new White House with Axios Sneak Peek. Sign up for free.
Catch up on coronavirus stories and special reports, curated by Mike Allen everyday
Catch up on coronavirus stories and special reports, curated by Mike Allen everyday
Want a daily digest of the top Denver news?
Get a daily digest of the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Denver
Want a daily digest of the top Des Moines news?
Get a daily digest of the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Des Moines
Want a daily digest of the top Twin Cities news?
Get a daily digest of the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Twin Cities
Want a daily digest of the top Tampa Bay news?
Get a daily digest of the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Tampa Bay
Want a daily digest of the top Charlotte news?
Get a daily digest of the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Charlotte
Our expert voices conversation about computers and creativity.
There's no creativity bone, organ or gene, no creativity program, subroutine or algorithm. It is what Gallie termed "essentially contested": society has agreed to disagree, forever, about the nature of creativity. While this scares scientists like me, it doesn't mean creativity is beyond study or automation, and its un-definable nature is a huge driving force for humanity. We've spent 20 years writing software that takes on creative responsibilities in arts and science projects. From inventing original concepts for West End musicals to generating video games on-demand, software already makes artefacts of real value. Creative software can revolutionize society by being free thinkers and valued collaborators, and by helping people achieve their creative potential. We recently created an app, called Wevva, that enables people to make brand new video games in minutes, directly on their mobile phones. This is just the tip of the iceberg, and the next big wave of AI applications will no doubt be in semi-automated creativity. Ultimately, I want to write software which can itself argue about what creativity is.
Bottom line: Society will be enhanced by machines being creative for us, with us and despite us.
Other voices in the conversation:
- Jesse Engel, artificial intelligence researcher, Google Brain: Augmenting human creativity
- Simon DeDeo, complexity theorist and cognitive scientist, Carnegie Mellon University and the Santa Fe Institute: thy commitment, decorated with Joy, begins to speak briskly
- Ed Newton-Rex, founder and CEO, Jukedeck: Computers are already creative
- Tony McCaffrey, CTO, Innovation Accelerator: Computers and humans and super-creativity
- Oded Ben-Tal, composer and researcher, Kingston University: Our definition of creativity will change