Here you go. I was wondering when I'd run into something that confirms my idea about art, and photography in general. I became interested in this sort of thing after reading a report where a group of MIT programmers put together a program, with specific parameters for the task, that would write a creative essay on the topic of an English instructors choice, such as you would find in a creative writing class.

The professors grading the essays had no idea which one was the computer generated essay. Turns out, they never did guess which one it was, but the computer generated essay did get an A. The next task was to write a work of fiction in the length of a book, perhaps 300 pages. The programmers said there was no reason that a piece of software should not be able to write fiction as well as and even better than a human, since all of the parameters and the "meaning" and "intention" of the work could also be programmed, along with the style of humankind's entire history of writers from Heraclitus to Faulkner and beyond.

Now here we are and photography is really not photography any longer, but a program recreating from CAD design blueprints a car, and another program calculating what the light should and does look like if the car were in that specific place, down to perfection.

Their next step is to create photography--computer images of--without the models, that is, a CAD blueprint of faces and bodies, and then the same software to "recreate" any position or article of clothing and light that is indistinguishable from a real model--without the model or the photographer.

It happened to Fisher when Big Blue did what nobody thought was possible--take down Fisher in a game of chess. And why not? Everything we do can be calculated. it's just a matter of how complex the machine is at calculating and variables becoming known rather than unknown.

Humanity reduced to yet another machine.

http://madvertisingblog.wordpress.com/2007...photography-20/

Amazing and scary at the same time... thanks for sharing this!

Mike.

They've been making actors out of whole cloth (CGI) for a while now. Apparently no action sequence that obeys the laws of physics is deemed acceptable anymore.

Yeah, reality, how boring. If my actors can't pull a gun and shoot someone with a pistol at 300 yards in less than 1 second holding the gun sideways, they suck. Ditto if they can't jump 10 foot fences. Weak humans.

We shouldn't be surprised. How many times do you hear--"Well even though the light is bad and the background is cluttered and I have 80 years old bags under my eyes, you can just clean it up in Photoshop, right?" And, "Wow, that's a great shot. You must have a good camera."

The problem is, those comments are not completely w/o warrant.

It takes some high key milestones like deep blue to raise awarness, but the fact is that there were programs able to beat most humans at the chess game years before one was able to beat Fischer.

The next major debate is about humanity. What is it to be a man vs a machine. All of us who have measured our abilities in terms of performance will soon realize that machines do it better. Then what is left? When machines look like man, and can handle most productive tasks better than man, what is left for man to be?

When a small caterpillar crosses a street on a hot summer day, have you ever wondered why he does it? What is there on the other side of the street that motivates the caterpillar to cross over? Nothing that he can see from his small height for sure.

Are we really less blind than caterpillars?

Similarly, what is the goal of us producing smarter machines every year? Who is in control? Under the cover of the ideas of competition, aren't we already mostly being slaved by machines using us to reproduce themselves and evolve?

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/susan_b..._and_temes.html

In other words, haven't we mostly lost track of the direction? Bad Religion said it all very well in a song called Flat earth society in the mid 1980s.

and the bright ship Humana is sailing far away
with grave determination....
and no destination

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=68b5PrZ0x9Y

It doesn't mean that we have to be Luddites, but we should reflect on this topic before it is too late

As far as photography goes, the next stake is clearly ethics.

Cheers,
Bernard

You are potentially right about the prospect of machines recreating photo shoots. But.... There are essentially two schools of thought (there may actually be more, i'm no expert) concerning Artificial Intelligence and whether it will ever be possible to develop human-like machine intelligence. Without any invocation of god, to be sure, there are many highly respected scientists and philosophers who believe that it will never happen. Equally there are many in the other camp. In my (very) limited understanding of it, it's got something to do with quantum physics, something to do with NP Problems (anyone remember those?!?), and some other stuff I either can't remember or can't understand.

Sorry, not very informative reply, but might give some of you a point for getting into this further.

When I was majoring in philosophy, the rule of anyone doing philosophy honestly was that you never, never take a position and try to support it. Rather, you follow the evidence, and then accept the tentative conclusion that the evidence supports, be it an a priori argument or an empirical one--even if you dislike it. I called that rule "intellectual hygiene" in an essay I wrote after I was out of school.

If it is a fact that machines can eventually evolve and displace humans in everything "good" that humans strive to be, then it is a matter of accepting that fact. ("Good" because we would have a hard time supporting the creation of machines that surpass humans at their worst, whereas on the other hand, we would have a hard time supporting the noncreation of machines that can do better all the things for which humans strive.) It's about accepting that fact, if it is a fact, and whatever comes with it.

What if it is a fact that we could end up being in that situation, but believe that it wouldn't be good, and decide not to go there?

Do we not, as smart humans, have the power to avoid some of the potential pitfals our tendency to progress leads us to?

Regards,
Bernard

You're assuming "pitfalls" when none are yet supported. But to answer your question, if you wanted to show "pitfalls" that would be more negative than positive, then you'd need to support that position.

That's why I framed my argument the way it is. If we could build machines that could love, respect, reason, have emotion, but do it better than we have so far, not to exclude our own progress in those areas--thus why I said "All the good things humans strive to be"--it would be very hard to argue validly for the denial of that creation.

On the other hand, if you could show some very real and negative aspects of creating such life forms, to the extent that creating them would be more negative in ways that would override the positive aspects, and support those reasons without leaps in logic, then you'd have a good counter argument, and we'd have to tentatively accept it as the best reasoned conclusion thus far.

When is Adobe going to provide this feature in Photoshop? Such technology could be very useful for copying and pasting cut-outs into a different environment and lighting situation.

From a general philosophical point of view, I see nothing to worry about concerning mankind's increasing mechanisation. In fact our entire civilisation and prosperity depends upon it, especially in view of the energy crisis and the impending disasters which will likely result from climatic warming.

The fact is, we're having free lunches at present because millions of Chinese, Indians, Vietnamese and others are working for peanuts to provide us with cheap goods; goods which are cheap because the production processes use less energy; use less energy because the workers don't live in nice houses with swimming pool, fridge and a plasma TV, and generally don't drive to work in a nice car and buy DSLRs and MFDBs.

Robots don't require nice houses and swimming pools. They'll work for the cost of a battery recharge. Let's hope we're smart enough to create the sort of robots that have been the subject of science fiction for the past several decades; or our entire civilisation is likely to go down the gurgler.

I fail to understand why the proof of the negativity of a possible future is required to start thinking about it.

For me the possibility of future negative consequences is enough of a case to start worrying.

Cheers,
Bernard

There is a simple - simplistic? - problem to all this which is seldom considered seriously. A machine doesn´t need emotional or status comforting. People do. Take away the human needs for identity and nothing will get done. Neither, of course, do machines spend money, thus ceasing to provide the base function of production.

No human needs or input and the nett result is silence in the workplace and the banks long broken...

Rob C, in a hurry and off for a quick pre-prandial drink!

My position is that all intelligence is artificial. Cockroaches will inherit the fruits of human intelligence - sooner rather than later, it would seem. Have a nice day.

Rob,
I thought it was the machines that produced the money. Aren't printing presses machines? We're fortunate the machines don't also spend the money.

Sadly, machines are increasingly spending the money. Most people in the U.S. are on budget billing for energy, and auto-deduct from bank to make payments. Few people carry much cash anymore, esp. in California. Nobody in the govt. knows where all the money goes, since most is auto-spent on programs set up by computers years ago.

Okay, I was in too much of a hurry to down that illicit glass of bubbly before lunch; now, with clear head and full belly I see that I should have been more precise!

The point I as trying to make is that machines are not people. It is only the human part of the equation that has the sentient need for life and the requirement to work and earn in order to sustain it (I appreciate there is also a sub-class of human that thinks differently, but that only survives as long as do the earners. This is also balanced, to an extent, by the other, super-affluent part of society that has need for neither work nor charity). Machines, left to themselves, have no need for anything at all; as they do not feel anything and do not have a sense of self, they have no wish for a salary. As they have no such wish and as they do not drop round to the local shops to buy anything, they do not further the supply of circulating money or credits, if you wish to quibble the semantics of cash v. card.

Ultimately, with no wealth being created, there is no money supply and thus no commerce, meaning no production of life-sustaining goods.

For many (meaning for me) the more automation in the factory or anywhere else, the less need for man to fulfil the rôle, and so on to subsequent unemployment which, taken to the finite, means total, world-wide idleness. And chaos.

How did we get onto this kick, anyway?

Rob C

You may be interested in the essay by Bill Joy in Wired magazine back in the 20th century - Why the future doesn't need us..

"Do you remember the beautiful penultimate scene in Manhattan where Woody Allen is lying on his couch and talking into a tape recorder? He is writing a short story about people who are creating unnecessary, neurotic problems for themselves, because it keeps them from dealing with more unsolvable, terrifying problems about the universe.

He leads himself to the question, "Why is life worth living?" and to consider what makes it worthwhile for him: Groucho Marx, Willie Mays, the second movement of the Jupiter Symphony, Louis Armstrong's recording of "Potato Head Blues," Swedish movies, Flaubert's Sentimental Education, Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, the apples and pears by Cézanne, the crabs at Sam Wo's, and, finally, the showstopper: his love Tracy's face.

Each of us has our precious things, and as we care for them we locate the essence of our humanity. In the end, it is because of our great capacity for caring that I remain optimistic we will confront the dangerous issues now before us."

EnJoy!!

The person (or entity) who (that) makes the decision and signs the instruction for automatic payments is the one who is literally and actually spending the money.

You cant stop progress the machine moves forward relentlessly and tirelessly the trick is to stay a half step up and not dig in too deep. Solvency is a great asset, as is adaptability. I grew through the film/digital switch and literally watched the entire business turn on its ear so fast half of em didnt even see it coming. Only thing that saved my bacon was already coming from a prior film career that became a dodo bird I was watching very cautiously so I managed to ride through still earning my keep from photography.

The good news as I see it. Implementation. The "photo machine" has to get there ( that be the location ) converse, take creative direction, consider brand or subject of interest as well as composition and oh yeah the designer has a layout in mind so deal with some awkward framing. Then when the creative director pulls an audible play based on supreme inspiration adjust for that and so on and so on I think I made my point. Honda can barely make a robot that walks at costs so absurd its absurd. So by the time we have a machine that can walk, talk, drive, contemplate, have flexible characteristics, and be consistent, not break down, COST effective.... well I'm pretty sure I'll be long gone so I really could care less.

In short IMO we are a looooooooooooong way from machines replacing photographers but we are fast heading towards true talent being crucial to survival if your plan is to make a business of photography the tech ability is not enough anymore we are definitely heading back to creative vision, true talent, and razor sharp skills being much more crucial that techno gadgets ( thank goodness )

But if this photographer replacement machine prophecy comes reality? You could always just take the red pill

Not to get off your overall topic, but I believe it was Kasparov beaten by Deep Blue. He was the first reigning world chess champion to lose to a computer in a standard tournament game, and in 1997 was actually defeated in a match.

Was he really beaten by a machine? All a computer does is allow programmers to do massively complex calculations. As a case in point, one reason the program won the championship was the programmers changing code that prevented it from falling into a trap that Kasparov had taken advantage of twice ... something a human player would have picked up on. There also is still a lot of rumors and accusations that human intervention occurred at other times during the match, and in fact IBM refused a rematch and retired the computer - many wondered what they were afraid of.

Damn right Ray! I for one am tired of taking my own images. If we can create them in PS, we could create anything we want in our living rooms.

But more seriously, I think the way copyright laws are written, you can right now do something like this:

1. Buy image of a bridge you really like, such as the Golden Gate in San Francisco.

2. Buy landscape of what you really like, such as half dome in Yosemite by Ansel Adams.

3. Buy landscape of an airport you really like.

4. Change all images by at least 30% to create this:

Composite the images so you have the Golden Gate bridge across from the Ahwahnee Hotel. Then paste the airport on top of Half Dome.

Title the new image "PROGRESS!" and sell it as your own.

I'm not aware of any legitimate arguments that support the idea we could not create such machines. But that doesn't mean much. I've been out of the loop for a while. If you are all interested, I could ask a couple of philosophy professors that still practice. They "may" know either how I can get the information, or have it outright.

You don't even have to go that far. All you need is a "plausible" argument. The reason we need an argument--not necessarily scientific proof--is that if we don't, then everyone's position is equally valid, simply because they are equally unsupported. True, even an unsupported idea might be valid in argument form, but we have no idea if it is or is not until it is formed into something testable, either an argument or scientific proof, or both!

But even w/o any of the above, definitely the subject is worth thinking about and developing. I didn't mean stop thinking about the possibility of negative aspects at all. Skepticism is where it all begins.

LOL,

But the point is actually "if" we could create machines that have emotional and logical abilities, that is, be as human and better. . . ."

Cockroaches are sweet. I mean they are "smart" for little biological machines. They all look the same though.

Why could we with teh help of machines not develop an "entity" that does have a sense of self? We don't have to call them machines.

I actually remember that article. I'm glad there are optimists like yourself. I have long ago given up optimism, even though I'm a member of the ACLU (I don't agree with everything they do, but I understand why they do it), Greenpeace, Sierra Club, National Wildlife Defense Council, Southern Poverty Law Center, and several others. I guess that's a sort of optimism.

Thanks for reminding me of that article.

Laughed my ass off. That's right. "THE RED PILL." hahaha. We should have a national Red Pill day.

Wow that's really interesting. I wonder why they didn't want a rematch? I'm not swaying this is why, but maybe it's because they thought it would be too depressing to think that Chess is only a numbers game--that is, there are a finite amount of moves to every problem. It's just a matter of cycling through them till you get the best move. In fact, that is what chess is.

I had a chess machine once and the instructions said something like that, that the computer would use all the time it needed to calculate the best move. You could set the time limit of the game and it would calculate how much time it could use per move.

From memory, the camps are basically split between those who believe the mind is nothing but a 'meat' processor and is algorithmic to the core, and those who believe that the mind is something more than algorithmic. The 'more' part is handled by quantum physics I believe. So, computers, algorithmic by design, may be unable to achieve human intelligence if the mind falls into the 'more than meat' category. I might dig out some old books over the weekend and report back if I can clarify.

On the post by Rob C: Rob would fall into the 'more than meat' school. If computers aren't able to mimick human intelligence and consciousness, then they will never out evolve us. Dwdwallam, I would assert that if a machine can't reach a conscious state it can't attain human intelligence, and I think this is the crux of what Rob is saying.

True, consciousness is the one element that distinguishes humans from all other known organism. I'm just not familiar with any research that says the brain is any different than any other problem solving machine.

If mankind comes up with a machine that's kinder, more compassionate, more empathic and more loving than humans, great. What's not to like?

As for taking photographs, composing music, playing chess, playing tennis, speaking foreign languages or any of the other things in which I take an interest, I know with 99.999999999% certainty that at age 53, I will never do any of them well enough to rank in the top 1000 in my country, let alone in the world. There are more than 6.8 BILLION humans out there, and the number is growing and my chances of getting near the top of any field of activity are shrinking.

So for me, whether the entities that do those activities better than me are humans or machines makes not a lot of difference. What matters for me is the experience of doing those things, and interacting with others as I do them.

As for the products of machines compared with the products of humans, similar considerations apply. What counts for me is whether a photograph, or a piece of music or a piece of writing connects with me. If a machine has produced it, then that's amazing.

The prospect of machine-based governance (a la Terminator) is another issue.

[quote=dwdallam,Jul 16 2008, 09:16 AM]
True, consciousness is the one element that distinguishes humans from all other known organism.

Madre de Dios! Have you never owned a dog?

Rob C

The problem in creating AI machines is we tend to define intelligence, or an intelligent entity, as "something like us". So to reproduce that in a machine requires two things that are rarely discussed. One, we need to feed the machine a lifetime of experience, or sensory input. We're close now on the data storage requirements (i.e. a terabyte per day of life), but not close on how to acquire that data. Two, we need to equip the machine with glands, to produce hormones, to give it incentives, drives, imperatives, etc.

[quote=Rob C,Jul 17 2008, 11:41 AM]
[quote=dwdallam,Jul 16 2008, 09:16 AM]
True, consciousness is the one element that distinguishes humans from all other known organism.

Madre de Dios! Have you never owned a dog?

Rob C

[/quote]

That's true, I believe. Ask a computer if the series 1,2,3,4 etc. has an ending, a final number, and it will not be able to answer without checking all numbers to infinity; 1 billion and one, one billion, trillion, trillion and one etc etc.

Of course, long before the computer reaches an answer, it will have broken down and burned out.

A 12 year old child could give the correct answer. The series has no ending.

There you go:

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=12384

Regards,
Bernard

And there we go again - yet another stupendous conference on AI and others that completely ignores the obvious that I stated - that humans perform almost everything subconsciously, driven by glands (or glandular memories, "engrams"), and the remaining two percent of "conscious" behavior is almost entirely emotional and devoid of logic. Take the "god spot" sometime and look at humans and their activities. We don't have to fear machines, ever. Our paranoia would preclude them ever getting an edge, even to the point of mutual annihilation.

Bernard,
When I read that article, I am reminded of converstaions I had with my school mates in England in the late 1950's, when America was aiming for the moon.

We figured that, by the end of the century we'd all have personal robots to do all the chores, and travelator pavements (sidewalks) in all the cities, that would make vehicular transport unnecessary.

It hasn't happened. I'm very disappointed. I sorely need a good robotic vacuum cleaner for my studio, but there are none sophisticated enough to navigate the tortuous layout of my floor space, not to mention the dusting of my computer equipment, wiping of monitor screen and cleaning of keyboard.

The problems are proving to be greater than we imagined.

[quote=Ray,Jul 17 2008, 02:02 PM]
Bernard,
When I read that article, I am reminded of converstaions I had with my school mates in England in the late 1950's, when America was aiming for the moon.

We figured that, by the end of the century we'd all have personal robots to do all the chores, and travelator pavements (sidewalks) in all the cities, that would make vehicular transport unnecessary.

It hasn't happened. I'm very disappointed. I sorely need a good robotic vacuum cleaner for my studio, but there are none sophisticated enough to navigate the tortuous layout of my floor space, not to mention the dusting of my computer equipment, wiping of monitor screen and cleaning of keyboard.

The problems are proving to be greater than we imagined.

[/quo



Ray

The answer is simple: alter your workflow to suit the capabilities of the robot, just as you are supposed to do in order to make digital photography more efficient!

Rob C

Dale,

Really sorry, I should have figured that I had to re-read all your previous posts and other publications before posting here.

On this topic, many people more or less define themselves by their ability to perform these tasks that you call automatic. From that standpoint, there is clearly value in thinking about the psychological impact on humans of the progress of machines. Even if you don't want to call it a threat, it seems obvious to me that there will be a growing impact.

The rate of progress is the only uncertainty, but we know for sure that a day will come when many people's lifes will be impacted by AI for good or bad. My contention is that those days are not very far.

The outcome of such reflexion might be that humankind is finally able to focus on what really matters, these supposed 2% you are mentioning. If only for that, wouldn't this thinking process be a good thing?

Cheers,
Bernard

Define AI. Are you talking about a robot that can go to the kitchen and make a cup of tea and bring it to you? Because by my definition, that isn't AI. AI, as it is used in the field, tends I think to mean human-like intelligence.

Yes, it's something to think about for sure. But to choose "either or" at this stage is premature.

Well guys, have fun with it. I'm unsubscribing. You all have good points, BTW. Thanks for responding.

From the link above:

Dr. Nick Bostrom, director of Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute, host of the symposium, is fearful that mankind may eventually create such a machine, capable of destroying its creators. He states, "Any entity which is radically smarter than human beings would also be very powerful. If we get something wrong, you could imagine the consequences would involve the extinction of the human species."

On the other hand:

Bostrom leads a movement known as transhumanism, which dually aims to watch for potential threats in emerging technologies and conversely adopt radical emerging technologies to enrich human life. Bostrom and other transhumanist hope that one day biotechnology, molecular nanotechnologies, and artificial intelligence will merge man with machine, yielding humans that have increased cognitive abilties, are physically stronger, and emotionally more stable. This path, they say will lead to "posthumans", augmented beings so superior to traditional man, they are separate entity.

The outcome of such reflexion might be that humankind is finally able to focus on what really matters, these supposed 2% you are mentioning. If only for that, wouldn't this thinking process be a good thing?

Cheers,
Bernard

[/quote]




Bernard, with more time on its hands and nothing essential to do with it, humankind is much more likely to turn itself against itself. Think about the current crime figures within the population that does no work: does the crime breed there because these criminals are just bitter, unfulfilled people who can´t get a job? Or, is it something else, perhaps the result of a mind that has too much time to dwell on itself?

Without the need to work, I have a feeling that mankind would simply atrophy from a sense of pointlessness.

If not to save mankind from actually doing work, why else would these future robots be wanted or created?

I don´t want to come over as some puritanical person with an overdeveloped work ethic - I simply believe that there is much to be said for the old dictum that the devil makes work for idle hands. Perhaps we need to be gainfully employed just to function into the future...

Rob C