Surprising results from computer programs do not equate to creativity, says computer scientist Selmer Bringsjord. Is there such a thing as machine creativity?
The feats of machines like AlphaGo are due to superior computational power, not to creativity at originating new ideas. Computer scientist Selmer Bringsjord sees the ability to write, say, a novel of ideas as a more realistic test of human vs. computer achievement.
“And probably the world’s leading authority on musical creativity, David Cope, does say explicitly that if the machine can do problem-solving, it catches people by surprise, he would stick to his guns and say that’s creative.
I absolutely reject that notion. I think the next step up is MacGuyver creativity—what I called N creativity fairly recently. And that is, all the humans put their minds together and create a wonderful artifact intended to be used in a particular domain for a particular set of tasks. The machine takes it and does something completely different with it, So that is beyond what you’re talking about. Not only is a game a game but the two games you’re talking about have the same formal structure. That’s why we know how difficult they are. And, in the history of AI, general game-playing, which has kind of petered out and wasn’t really its idea, tells us that that jump, from Go to checkers or whatever it is, is not that large. But even the MacGuyver creativity, I don’t know that there are cases of that out there.
Given that, it’s a long way from origination, I do see what you see as creative but it’s a problem-solving type of creativity and that doesn’t cut it. That’s not genuine origination. And that was the complaint to Turing; Lovelace’s “Wait a minute, we originate things. A computer doesn’t originate anything.”” – Mind Matters News
Further reading:
Why AI appears to create things. When AlphaGo made a winning move, it exhibited no more creative insight than when it played pedestrian moves (Brendan Dixon)
Why AI fails to actually create things (Brendan Dixon)
and
Creativity does not follow computational rules. A philosopher muses on why machines are not creative.