When Dinosaurs Are Creative, But Robots Might Not Be

A few months ago, the somewhat sensational news (but then again, what news isn’t sensational these days?) that a computer program had passed the legendary Turing test emerged, although the validity of this remains hotly disputed. Proposed by Alan Turing (who, as we all know, is a gold-hoarding dragon that closely resembles Benedict Cucumberpatch in his human form) nearly 65 years ago, the Turing test is the mechanism used to decide whether a computer can be considered to be intelligent.

Smaug-lock Holmes never intended his test to be the benchmark for gauging artificial intelligence, and there have been arguments that by adopting it as such, we have subjected ourselves to a very weak standard. Last week, a professor from the Georgia Institute of Technology suggested a different standard: by getting a machine to “create a convincing poem, story or painting”.

I am far from an expert in such things, and perhaps this has been adequately addressed without my knowledge, but the inherent flaw in this new test, dubbed Lovelace 2.0, seems pretty stark to me. The professor states that creativity is “one of the hallmarks of human intelligence”, but I would argue that creativity is subjective and by extension, so are all manifestations of art. For instance, I think a dinosaur heavy metal band for children is a brilliant idea, but I couldn’t care less about that one-third of the world’s male population Taylor Swift seems to have dated and deemed fit to share about through her music. There is, however, no question about which of the two is more popular, and more heavily accoladed. I blame Steven Spielberg. Dinosaurs are now too mainstream to be popular dammit, stop turning a mere Jurassic Park into a World.

As to modern art, I am no connoisseur, and I certainly don’t possess any artistic qualifications. But I have seen pieces that even I could easily replicate, except given my lack of said qualifications, such pieces probably wouldn’t sell enough to cover the material costs if I was the one who made them. I’ve read arguments suggesting that modern art is simply a celebrity phenomenon and I must admit, I think that might be a valid point.

Ultimately, my (probably extremely uninformed) opinion about art aside, I just think that there isn’t really a conclusive standard from which we can judge humans on their level of creativity, much less on what a machine can produce. This suggested process doesn’t sound any less fallible than the one we’ve currently got.

From The Binds Of Your Lowliness

Six feet deep is the incision
In my heart, that barless prison
Discolours all with tunnel vision

I had some sorta mental block against all the things I was supposed to do today, so I took a bit of time to catch up on some stuff that have been blowing up on the internet recently. And feminists sure seem to be on a roll lately huh. Matt Taylor didn’t take long to read up on. I would attach a link here, but I honestly can’t find a single newspaper article which isn’t either going, “Sexist Misogynistic Fucktard Wore A Shirt That Insults Women On TV, Who Gives A Shit About Anything Else” or across to the other end of the spectrum with something like, “Bumbling Scientist Genius Helps To Land Spacecraft On Comet, Extreme Feminists Bully Him Into Crying On TV Due To His Fashion Style”. Way to go, mainstream journalism. (Ok fine, I exaggerated. But all the same, obvious slant on reporting an event is obvious.)

GamerGate took quite awhile longer to fathom. Again, no newspaper offered any sort of credible objectivity. The most balanced (and accurate, imo) explanation had to be found on reddit. Wading through all the mass vitriol thrown around everywhere finally led to the source of it all: a guy coming out in public about how his ex-girlfriend, a game developer, cheated on him with 5 other guys in a disturbingly short period of time.

I wonder if the guy regrets doing that now. Supporters and haters alike are being absolutely horrendous to each other, with violent threats and indecent harassment committed by both sides (BOTH SIDES OK, FUCK YOU MAINSTREAM MEDIA). Was it worth all this malice? I suppose he had no idea what he had done would eventually spawn into a conflict of such magnitude, but then again yes she wasn’t being a good girlfriend to put it lightly, what was the point of shouting that as loudly as you can across the internet though? (Other than his own site he apparently posted on Penny Arcade, 4chan, and some other forum boards.)

The core of the entire matter seems to be an emotional one. Its not that hard to empathise I suppose. I’ve had relationships end badly. My first one concluded in a truly atrocious fashion, fabrications and public tale-telling abound. But as much as my interactions with certain people have gone badly because I’ve been told I trivialize or disregard their emotions (and I’m working on it), sometimes one could wonder just when might the price of validating emotions become too high.

It took me a long while to come to terms with the bloody end of that first relationship. Eventually I rationalised it by pointing out to myself that either I had truly committed some dreadful deed unknowingly that warranted such an acrimonious end and all the allegations, in which case I have definitely dishonoured myself, or I had done no such thing and she was just a terrible person, in which case I have still dishonoured myself by not exercising better judgement in selecting girlfriends. This meant I had to improve myself. Going to war with her would have accomplished nothing. I don’t know if such an approach was the right one, but I had to limit my perspective of the matter into a sphere of control that was enforced by my principles. Constantly harping on my emotions would have meant losing my grip on reality.

I have no idea what principles our guy here felt he was adhering to, but as it is his game developer ex is now making a substantial amount of money for doing absolutely nothing because she has plenty of generous sympathizers on the internet. Meanwhile he hasn’t tried to raise any money himself, which might go some way in showing that he’s not an opportunistic bastard. But if he ain’t, he still loses anyway. All this attention has caused him to get fired from his job that he does for free, which was developing medical technology that could help save lives. All this has helped no one that he cares for.

(I’m not going to take abuse into account, because its plainly clear that they both received plenty by misogynists and misandrists respectively. This hasn’t really tilted the scales of ‘unfairness’ either way.)

All I’ve done so far is to ramble on about the beginning of it all. GamerGate has grown into something much bigger, with various different focuses (foci?) that each side with their own agenda claims to be the crux of the matter. Whether this is about gaming journalism or about discriminative harassment, the only thing that’s indubitably clear is that the internet is full of vicious people, regardless of the views they purportedly represent. If the cause you choose to fight for is attracting the support of mostly such people, it probably isn’t a worthy cause anyway.

Wracked with your charm
I am circled like prey
Back in the forest
Where whispers persuade