18 Articles about AI & the Creative Arts

Responsible by Design – Why AI Must Be Human-First – Unite.AI  

An Illustrator Confronts his fears about AI Art – New York Times 

The Grammys Chief on How AI Will Change Music – Wall Street Journal

Approaching AI as a design leader: rethinking the customer journey with a layer of AI-first - Jehad Affoneh

AI, Search and the Future of News Once again, distinctiveness is the best defense - Richard J. Tofel

Music streaming service Deezer adds AI song tags in fight against fraud – Associated Press

‘M3gan 2.0’ Review: Everyone’s favorite campy killer doll returns in a movie that has some thoughts about AI - Wall Street Journal

Madison Avenue Braces for the AI Apocalypse – Hollywood Reporter  

What Hollywood wants from the AI industry – Washington Post

Music Producer Timbaland Introduces New AI Artist – Rolling Stone

Australian authors say no to AI using their work – even if money is on the table – The Conversation

AI learns how vision and sound are connected, without human intervention – MIT 

How political cartoonists are bringing AI into their work – Harvard’s Neiman Lab

There should be no AI button - Kojo Osei 

Fortnite’s Darth Vader Is A.I.-Powered. Voice Actors Are Rebelling. - New York Times 

Why AI Interviews Could Be Bad News For Honest Designers - Andy Budd

‘Nobody wants a robot to read them a story!’ The creatives and academics rejecting AI – at work and at home – The Guardian  

I write novels and build AI. The real story is more complicated than either side admits – Fast Company

5 AI-based image-creation tools

Turn written text into realistic images with OpenAI’s DALL-E. The U.S.-based AI research company has opened the system to the public. The image below was created with it (“Chartreuse background with a fuchsia of contour octopus tentacles”).

Besides OpenAI’s DALL-E, there are other AI-based image-creation tools:

NovelAI MidJourney

ArtBreeder NightCafe

More Tech Tools

He Dropped Out to Become a Poet. Now He’s Won the top award for Mathematics

June Huh has been awarded the Fields Medal, the highest honor in mathematics, for his ability to wander through mathematical landscapes. One might say the same of his path into mathematics itself: that it was characterized by much wandering and a series of small miracles. When he was younger, Huh had no desire to be a mathematician. He was indifferent to the subject, and he dropped out of high school to become a poet. That poetic detour has since proved crucial to his mathematical breakthroughs. His artistry, according to his colleagues, is evident in the way he uncovers those just-right objects at the center of his work, and in the way he seeks a deeper significance in everything he does. “Mathematicians are a lot like artists in that really we’re looking for beauty,” said Federico Ardila-Mantilla, a mathematician at San Francisco State University and one of Huh’s collaborators. “But I think in his case, it’s really pronounced. And I just really like his taste. He makes beautiful things.”       

Jordana Cepelewicz writing in Quanta Magazine

The creative spirit

Children are naturally creative, playful, and experimental. If you ask me, we were the most human when we were young kids. We "worked" on our art. Sometimes for hours at a time without a break, because it was in us, though we did intellectualize it. As we got older, fears crept in, and doubts, and self-censoring, and over-thinking. The creative spirit is in us now, it’s who we are. We just need to look at the kids around us to be reminded of that. And whether you are 28 or 88 today, it’s never too late, because the child is still in you. 

Garr Reynolds, Presentation Zen

A Tale of Two Artists

The first of two artists said, "I have traveled the world over and I have seen a lot. But I have not found one person worth painting. I have found flaws in everyone and just can't bring myself to paint them."

The second artist disagreed, "I may not be a great artist; I have never been to Paris - or even New York. But among my unimportant friends living in my small rural town, I have not found anyone too insignificant to paint. There is always a better side. I may not be a great artist, but I enjoy my art."

Which is one is the true artist? The one who finds nothing worth painting? Or the one who brings a certain something to his craft enabling him to see a world of beauty others are blind to? In the same way, some people find no one worthy of their love, while others find everyone worthy.

Should I search for attractive people to paint, to love? Or should I look for the attractiveness of the soul within?

Throwing Away your Children’s Art

When I first tried throwing away my own young children’s art…I felt an ache as I pitched it into the trash. There’s a moment when a child first presents you with her art, holding it out with the last split second of attention she can muster after completing it. That moment contains a burst of pride on both your parts, and a frisson of mutual love. But in the end, your pride lasts longer than the child’s does. Eventually, and soon, it must move on to another venture. Theirs always does, but yours lingers, heartstrings tugged.

It’s the wish to prolong this moment artificially, I think, that motivates the urge to keep and curate your children’s art for posterity. You convince yourself there’s some future where your child will want to return to that moment of pride and love through the act of witnessing the thing she made so long ago.

Don’t fall for it. You’re only trying to make yourself feel better. You’ll never quite be able to tell which moment your children will remember, and it’s not as if you can regulate that memory on their behalf anyway. And besides, childhood is made from a thousand moments just like this. There’s no way to hold on to all of them.

Of course, you shouldn’t throw something away that your kids say they want to keep. But absent that urge, and particularly in the early years before it develops, most children’s art exists to be destroyed. The point of life isn’t to prolong youth, but to have grown up. That requires discarding things along the way, and enjoying the appropriate relief. That’s the kind of activity a parent ought to put their moral and aesthetic weight behind.

Mary Townsend writing in The Atlantic

The freak-out test

If I were feeling really anxious what would I do? If we would pick up the phone and call six friends, one after another, with the aim of hearing their voices and reassuring ourselves that they still love us, we’re operating hierarchically. We’re seeking the good opinion of others.

Here’s another test. Of any activity you do, ask yourself: If I were the last person on earth, would I still do it? If you are alone on a planet a hierarchical structure makes no sense. There’s no one to impress. So, if you’d still pursue that activity, congratulations.

If Arnold Schwarzenegger were the last man on earth, he’d still go to the gym. Stevie Wonder would still pound the piano. The sustenance they get comes from the act itself, not from the impression it makes on others.

Now: What about ourselves as artists?

If we were freaked out, would we go there first? If we were the last person on earth, would we still show up at the studio, the rehearsal hall, the laboratory?

Steven Pressfield. The War of Art