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The Creativity Code
Art and Innovation in the Age of AI
-
Marcus Du Sautoy
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2020
About this book
“A brilliant travel guide to the coming world of AI.”
—Jeanette Winterson
What does it mean to be creative? Can creativity be trained? Is it uniquely human, or could AI be considered creative?
Mathematical genius and exuberant polymath Marcus du Sautoy plunges us into the world of artificial intelligence and algorithmic learning in this essential guide to the future of creativity. He considers the role of pattern and imitation in the creative process and sets out to investigate the programs and programmers—from Deep Mind and the Flow Machine to Botnik and WHIM—who are seeking to rival or surpass human innovation in gaming, music, art, and language. A thrilling tour of the landscape of invention, The Creativity Code explores the new face of creativity and the mysteries of the human code.
“As machines outsmart us in ever more domains, we can at least comfort ourselves that one area will remain sacrosanct and uncomputable: human creativity. Or can we?…In his fascinating exploration of the nature of creativity, Marcus du Sautoy questions many of those assumptions.”
—Financial Times
“Fascinating…If all the experiences, hopes, dreams, visions, lusts, loves, and hatreds that shape the human imagination amount to nothing more than a ‘code,’ then sooner or later a machine will crack it. Indeed, du Sautoy assembles an eclectic array of evidence to show how that’s happening even now.”
—The Times
Reviews
As machines outsmart us in ever more domains, we can at least comfort ourselves that one area will remain sacrosanct and uncomputable: human creativity. Or can we? …In his fascinating exploration of the nature of creativity, Marcus du Sautoy questions many of those assumptions. The Oxford mathematician, who is as adept at explaining complex theories in prose as he is on television, argues that so much of what we consider to be creativity consists of super-smart synthesis rather than the flash of inspiration.
-- John Thornhill Financial Times
-- John Thornhill Financial Times
The Creativity Code is only partly a book about AI art. It is as much about how AI thinks and how it does mathematics—du Sautoy’s own special subject. And on these topics, he is thoughtful and illuminating.
-- Sunday Times
-- Sunday Times
Fascinating… If all the experiences, hopes, dreams, visions, lusts, loves, and hatreds that shape the human imagination amount to nothing more than a ‘code,’ then sooner or later a machine will crack it. Indeed, du Sautoy assembles an eclectic array of evidence to show how that’s happening even now.
-- The Times
-- The Times
Argues reassuringly that true creativity belongs to humanity…A computer may best any human at calculation, but it lacks that snippet of ‘human code’ that lets us know when an idea is not just new but meaningful.
-- New York Times Book Review
-- New York Times Book Review
An ambitious meditation on the meaning of creativity and consciousness.
-- Wall Street Journal
-- Wall Street Journal
Fact-packed and funny, questioning what we mean by creative and unsettling the script about what it means to be human, The Creativity Code is a brilliant travel guide to the coming world of AI.
-- Jeanette Winterson
-- Jeanette Winterson
A wide-ranging and fact-packed tour d’horizon of current applications of artificial intelligence in mathematics and the arts.
-- The Guardian
-- The Guardian
In a classic 1950 paper, Alan Turing asked: ‘Can machines think?’ …Du Sautoy’s test is different but no less challenging: can machines be genuinely creative? The interest, just as it was for Turing, lies not so much in finding a definitive answer but in examining what the question itself might mean.
-- Prospect
-- Prospect
Absorbing…Eloquent and illuminating.
-- Nature
-- Nature
Algorithms that not only duplicate human skills but learn from their mistakes are what define artificial intelligence. But du Sautoy considers the possibility of reaching another stage: machine creativity, technology that is itself capable of innovation.
-- Inside Higher Ed
-- Inside Higher Ed
Technology is already controlling more and more of our lives every day, sometimes in ways we barely stop to think about. As programs slowly do more of our thinking, Du Sautoy reassuringly insists that there are, indeed, some ways in which technology can never replace human ingenuity.
-- Emily Wenstrom Book Riot
-- Emily Wenstrom Book Riot
Makes the case for why algorithms could match Beethoven or Picasso—or for that matter, the creative departments of advertising agencies.
-- Marketing Week
-- Marketing Week
Algorithms are often seen as opaque or dangerous forces, fueling our fears of apocalypse/the ghost in the machine. But if art is an early warning system and artists the experts at making the invisible visible, then Marcus du Sautoy is, in this remarkable consideration of the limitations and possibilities of AI, the light-bearer, illuminating not only the work of coders and creators, but the mathematics of chaos that underpin art.
-- Hans Ulrich Obrist, Director of the Serpentine Gallery and author of The Interview Project
-- Hans Ulrich Obrist, Director of the Serpentine Gallery and author of The Interview Project
We seem to have convinced ourselves that higher-level creativity and intuition are uniquely human traits. Why? Why could a machine one day not create a truly original work of art, write a moving poem, compose an opera, or even discover a mathematical theorem? The answers, in this compelling and thought-provoking book by mathematician and musician Marcus du Sautoy, can be found by breaking down what it actually means to be creative.
-- Jim Al-Khalili, Professor of Theoretical Physics and Presenter of The Secret Life of Chaos
-- Jim Al-Khalili, Professor of Theoretical Physics and Presenter of The Secret Life of Chaos
An interesting, reader-friendly discussion of how well computers can be creative.
-- Choice
-- Choice
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Frontmatter
i -
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Contents
vii -
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1. The Lovelace Test
1 -
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2. Three Types of Creativity
7 -
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3. Ready Steady Go
16 -
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4. Algorithms, the Secret to Modern Life
40 -
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5. From Top-Down to Bottom-Up
61 -
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6. Algorithmic Evolution
75 -
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7. Painting by Numbers
92 -
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8. Learning from the Masters
115 -
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9. The Art of Mathematics
140 -
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10. The Mathematician’s Telescope
158 -
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11. Music: The Process of Sounding Mathematics
174 -
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12. The Song-Writing Formula
199 -
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13. DeepMathematics
218 -
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14. Language Games
237 -
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15. Let AI Tell You a Story
258 -
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16. Why We Create: A Meeting of Minds
279 -
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Selected Bibliography
289 -
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Acknowledgments
297 -
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Index
299
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
June 17, 2019
eBook ISBN:
9780674240407
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9780674240407
