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Week 3 - Robotics + Art

Reaching back to the Renaissance, industrialization has helped the arts thrive. As explained in Vesna's lecture videos, the printing press and the movable type revolutionized the way information could be distributed. As a result, mass production of books and newspapers was effortless, causing a rapid distribution of knowledge. Marshall McLuhan compares this past breakthrough to our current progress with information technology and predicted the world wide web. He analyzed the effect of mass media and how this level of communication allows for a village-like mindset throughout the entire world with the creation of global economy and culture.

From: myhomegadgets.com

Industrialization facilitates the accessibility of technology in order to quickly spread ideas and art. With websites like DeviantArt and Etsy, people from all over the world are able to share and sell their work. However, concerns are raised that this mass reproduction destroys the "uniqueness and authenticity" of the art, as argued by Walter Benjamin. I disagree with this claim as industrialization allows more people to enjoy the artist's work. Even many copies are distributed, it does not ruin the authenticity of the original art. Technological advancements would even make room for new potential artistic innovation, especially within the field of artificial intelligence.

Currently, computers lack the capability to solve ill-defined problems. They do excel in performing tasks that necessitates precision, but our human brains are shown to provide better accuracy with tasks such as natural language processing, as explained by Hopfield. A neural network is a framework designed after a human nervous system as it includes layers of interconnected nodes as processing units that sum up a nonlinear function.

Neural network model
From: extremetech.com

Dayhoff elaborates that as this data model gets exposed to more information, the network can be correspondingly adjusted with its weighted relationships in a process called "training". Hopefully, we could build on this structure with machine learning to one day reach a point where we could have fluid every-day conversations with our customizable operating systems. This is exemplified in the movie Her.



Future expansion in this field will definitely be based around improving the user experience and making these advancements readily available to the public. Industrialization allows artists to have this large audience to enjoy their work. Overall, I believe that society would continue to embrace future technological developments and its integration into different art forms.



Sources

Artificial neural networks are changing the world. What are they?, 12 Oct. 2015. ExtremeTech, www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/NeuralNetwork.png. Accessed 23 Apr. 2017.

Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. London: Penguin, 2008. Print.

Dayhoff, J. E. and J. M. DeLeo. “Artificial neural networks.” Cancer, vol. 91, no.S8, 15 Apr. 2001, pp. 1615-1635. Wiley Online Library, 17 April 2001. doi:10.1002/1097-0142(20010415)91:8+<1615::AID-CNCR1175>3.0.CO;2-L.
Global internet users rise 300 mn to 3.2 bn in 2015. Feb. 2016. MyHomeGadgets, www.myhomegadgets.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Internet-users.jpg. Accessed 23 Apr. 2017.

 "Her - Official Trailer (HD) Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams." Online video clip. Youtube, uploaded by JoBlo Movie Trailers, 7 Aug 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzV6mXIOVl4.

Hopfield, J.J. "Artificial neural networks." IEEE Circuits and Devices Magazine, Sept. 1988. IEEE Xplore, doi:10.1109/101.8118.

"Robotics pt1." Online video clip. Youtube, uploaded by Victoria Vesna, 15 Apr. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRw9_v6w0ew.

"Robotics pt3." Online video clip. Youtube, uploaded by uconlineprogram, 16 Apr. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkP7oSZVkbg.

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