If an AI can make a painting, then maybe soon an AI can write a novel or screenplay

I'm sure an AI could do those things today, just not very well.

Well, as far as novel-writing AIs, there's this: http://botnik.org/content/harry-potter.html

I have seen cats and elephants that could paint. They do some very interesting abstract stuff.
Why would you start out the poor AI with the human form?
It's only a beginner.
A square house and a lollipop-style tree is what you start beginners with. Or a simple landscape: sky, mountain, trees, grass.
I'll bet that AI could copy very nicely if someone gave it a single pattern - not feeding in dozens of nudes, all in different positions, at different angles, and expecting the poor thing to pick out the relevant parts.

It's a publicity stunt. Although, an interesting study in what the AI thinks people are: apparently, blobs with appendages. (Did they even input the standard human dimensions as a reference? Has it even 'seen' real people?)

It may not do well as a painter, but I sure wouldn't want it doing surgery.

That AI’s paintings are documentary on bad Star Trek transporter accidents.

I dunno, they got a Wayne Barlowe quality I kind of like to them. Maybe they see us as we are (fleshy, unformed humanoid abominations), and we're just blinkered to the truth.

I love stuff like this. Dadaism, surrealism, impressionism, blobandsquiggleism. Some of my favorites. No sarcasm involved.

Introversion said:

I'm sure an AI could do those things today, just not very well.

Click to expand...

They do already exist. I'm imagining a sort of "Mad Lib" approach to storytelling. It could be pretty hilarious.

http://www.businessinsider.com/novels-written-by-computers-2014-11

They are getting better at it, though, That's kind of scary. Will they ever produce prose, characters and plots that are impossible to distinguish from human-generated work (and of a more uniform style and consistency). Is it possible that people will come to prefer art, including literature, produced by computers because it's so predictable and formulaic? I haven't been terribly impressed by how pedantic editing software tends to be when giving feedback to writers about their prose. These algorithms always seem to assume we "want" to use a give word or sentence structure no more than the "average" published writer does, but some will always fall above and below any generated mean.

Or will programming computers to write stories of different kinds become a desirable skill, one that requires a certain amount of creativity and understanding of story structure, so one can plug in the basic elements (character traits, setting, general plot points, and narrative voice elements) but allow the computer to do the tedious (to some people) bit of connecting the dots and churning out the verbiage? Some writers already take a very "programmed" approach to writing, with character sheets, detailed outlines, and miles of world building in advance, and they often insist that one *must* always use an outline and force one's characters back into line if one finds oneself deviating from the original plan and morphing into "discovery" mode.

Perhaps it will be the ultimate victory for the plotters and planners over pantsers/discovery writers, since a discovery writer wouldn't be effective at creating the set-up for a computer-generated novel, since we have to engage in the writing process to discover where we even want the story to go in the first place?

And what will it do to novel sales if one can quickly generate dozens of books? There are already far more books being produced that people can read, and talented writers are often buried and have a hard time finding readers.

What will humans do with themselves if endeavors we think of as purely creative can be replicated by machines? Will we be happy to live in a world with a guaranteed minimum salary as we create things only for ourselves?

I was reminded of this Gordon White short story. link