Comments on: Can computers understand art?

By: BPFNE

BPFNE — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 13:23:38 +0000

Understanding is not what art is about. Art is about appreciating the months of work in one paining. The feeling of the artist at the time. The emotion felt and perceived will never be understood by an automated machine.

By: asiwel

asiwel — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 15:35:50 +0000

Let me be a little clearer. The result in the article, the similarity graph, is something I would expect to be produced by. e.g., SAS multivariate analysis procedures and graphics programs. I honestly don’t think of factor analysis or path analysis or discriminant functions or pattern recognition, etc., as “intelligent behavior.” I simply regard and respect these procedures as mathematical tools.for analyzing data.

By: Christian Gehman

Christian Gehman — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 15:30:54 +0000

Andy’s soup cans are to art as his beans in the bung hole are to literature.

By: asiwel

asiwel — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 15:13:43 +0000

I think I would agree with almost all of Bri’s comment above, except perhaps for the second sentence “..it is beginning to understand” … If we are just talking about this example of an AI-type algorithm, my argument is that there still is no “it” there yet to do any “understanding.” The algorithm is essentially an analytical capability. There is no question that these sorts of tools are multiplying and improving. In fact they are really what is now called “narrow AI.” Compared to past programs, they are “brilliant” but compared to the idea of “intelligence” they are necesssary but still way insufficent conditions. There still seems to be very little “I” in narrow AI.

By: asiwel

asiwel — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 15:01:44 +0000

“Kitt??”… uh … Probably not. In retrospect, I would want, instead, to politely ask my car to please tell me its name, before we drove off together …

By: none

none — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 05:49:49 +0000

how about kitt

By: PAUL

PAUL — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 05:38:59 +0000

good point

By: Bri

Bri — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 02:06:29 +0000

My father used to say that he didn’t like andy’s art, but that it was a meaningful step in arts evolution. He did think that Andy was a very good graphics artist( think of the Maralyn photo and it’s strong use of color. It’s a bold eye catching graphic!).

By: Bri

Bri — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 01:55:21 +0000

@Frank and Editor (Amara) this is my point. It is beginning to understand. It formulated the relationships on it’s own. A art historian starts as someone who is drawn to art. They have no basis to evaluate what they see. As they explore art, they learn it’s relationships, whether intuitively or through conversations with other people. When I go to museums with people who have no understanding of art, I try and see it through their eyes. The only handle they have is in the pictorial aspects and subjective feelings. By pictorial I mean it’s photographic qualities. The subjective is in relation to what is depicted and unconscious emotional reactions, which are mostly driven by use of color and what the subjects actions depict, such as a war scene, a land scape, a soup can,etc. Those things are part of our ability to identify and react to the world. Like how they have to train a robot that a rubber ball is round and bounces. The google caris learning this. Nicko is learning this. This program is now learning another layer of understanding and it is doing ot far faster than a normal human can. Of the program also had access to the google cars programs of interrelationships, it would be one step closer to how we perceive the world, and also be a step ahead because people don’t intuitively break down paintings into the groupings this program does. To go through a quick art history lesson. We started making representations of meaningful objects in the cave painting days. These depictions grew in complexity. In Egyptian art, they didn’t know how to use perspective, hence the ackward poses. By the time you get to the dark ages you still have very flat subjects, but perspective is being explored. Each of these steps is an understanding that is learned and passed down as a tradition. These traditions are used to express concepts, emotions. They are like words that gain meaning by the relationships of usage in a particular culture. All of that are deeper subtle levels of analysis, that can be added to this programs impressive understanding of different styles of expression. Our understandings are much more nuanced, but this program is already superior in it’s ability to find relationships. It’s just that there ate many levels of relationships that humans evaluate thing by. Nicko was learning another level of relationships.

By: Bri

Bri — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 01:15:01 +0000

I thought that was their job. They do it all so well.

By: asiwel

asiwel — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 00:19:18 +0000

Pardon me for going on here, but lately the discussion of “algorithms” has been becoming metaphysical. If we have a clever route-finding computer algorithm capable of “machine learning” even .. and we properly connected it up to a rat’s brain, so that it assisted the rat solve mazes to get food, I would call that combination a “super-intelligent” rat. But I would not call the algorithm itself intelligent … instead I would call it a very intelligently programmed algorithm. Google’s automated cars, Watson’s medical diagnoses, even Siri’s anwsers areexamples rapidly evolving into something I would begin to call pretty smart devices. I would want to give my car a name.

By: asiwel

asiwel — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 00:02:07 +0000

As Bri said, “It’s just another layer of analysis” and, indeed, in this case, a very interesting and potentially useful and enlightening one. We can produce such “similarity” networks using good computer algorithms and most any data – to wit, evolutionary biology and genomic patterns, citation studies in professional literature, etc.. Whether they make sense is whether the underlying patterns they reveal are reliable and valid – stable and interpretable. But “understanding”, “appreciating”, “learning from”, and changing one’s attitudes and behavior in light of exposure to art – being an entity that does that, whether machine or human, is on a somewhat different order. Even if the data the researchers provide are considered “perceptions” and the results of the analysis when applied to answering questions (posed by others) are the “behaviors”, and the whole thing is the “entity,” I am still not sure I would call that “intelligence.” If the algorithm starts acting independently and begins to tweet (i.e., talk about and publish) patterns it finds itself in data of interest to it, that would be a different story entirely.

By: Gorden Russell

Gorden Russell — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 23:58:40 +0000

The article didn’t mention if the Campbell soup cans of Andy Warhol were show to the program.

By: Editor

Editor — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 20:53:25 +0000

The algorithm exhibits far greater apparent understanding of art than mine (admittedly not a high threshold), but does not extend (yet) to the depth of an art expert, although the researchers don’t claim that. So the question is: what does “understanding” mean? I admit that’s above my understanding. :)

By: Editor

Editor — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 20:16:25 +0000

You’re right. That requires art critics who are trained to cbnoxiously cite names and buzzwords. :)

By: Liabna

Liabna — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 18:59:04 +0000

Well,.., Art is not just painting ya kno deer komputr

By: Bri

Bri — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 18:31:29 +0000

These are broad technical differences. They are a skeleton of changes in techniques. Branching off from this are the more subtle changes in artistic thought that have evolved over time. If we look at a art historian before they get an education, they would be hard pressed to make these categorical assumptions. So the program is already more intuitive than even someone who is drawn to art. All the other analyses were formed as the painters themselves explored art as a means of expression. Art is a language of communication. It’s not about the craft of applying paint. Artists use techniques to relate a thought to peoples unconscious minds. Micheal Angelos statue of the Jesus lying dead on the virgin Mary’s lap is a classic example. Jesus is life sized, but Mary would stand about 14 feet tall. The statue is about her love and suffering, and you are drawn to her image more than Jesus’s because of the unconscious effects of the scale difference. These attributes can be added into the AI program. It’s just another layer of analysis.

By: Marcos Marin

Marcos Marin — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 16:26:37 +0000

Obnoxiously citing names and buzzwords is indeed something “untrained humans” cannot do very well. :-D

By: Frank Krasicki

Frank Krasicki — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 15:41:37 +0000

The title and conclusion of this article are profoundly disingenuous. The ability to categorize visual material is quite different from the ability to “understand” the material.

While the cross-referencing of information about these artists and their works is an essential component in understanding the material, it is quite another thing to presume that this data is any more meaningful to a computer than the dental records of artists. The retrieval, no matter how accurate, of mere data is not evidence of understanding the quality of that data, the weight of the ideas involved, or the latent trajectory of those ideas to create new Art.

The good news is that programs like these will contribute to an augmented art experience for visitors to galleries and museums.