This just came across my pc in my inbox and I thought I would pass it along. It is written by Jason Miller. He makes a very strong point about writing your own content versus computer generated content. If you have the talent for writing I applaud and congratulate for having the ability to write. While some of us, like myself have to rely on other means of obtaining content to post on our blogs or websites. This is not a plug for webpronews nor am I getting paid for posting this. I thought this would be of interest to the members here at adland.
WebProNews - Automated Content Will Unmake Existence
July 12, 2008
http://www.WebProNews.com
Automated Content Will Unmake Existence
Jason Lee Miller | Staff Writer
Hug a writer today
Chess is one thing, but if we get to the point computers can
best humans in the arts-those splendid, millennia-old expressions
of the heart and soul of human existence-then why bother existing?
Fortunately, computers have yet to match us in music or writing or
dancing or even drawing-the lines are straighter, but that's not
even the point, and good luck uploading an actual right-brained
imagination.*
The preceding paragraph may seem obvious to you, so deeply obvious
that the assertion takes shape as an immovable stone at the center
of your being. Computers creating art is an upsetting concept
mostly because of what it means about humans: They, their feelings,
their thoughts are predictable (or at least probable), down to the
last letter, down to the last limited thought. If so, an algorithm
calculating all probabilities can reproduce all scenarios, can
predict all outcomes, and can even tell your story for you before
you even know you have a story.
It's all very quantum and post modern. Jorge Borges' short story
from over half a century ago, "The Library of Babel" is about an
infinite (perhaps infinite) library filled with every story, and
every variation of every story. At the end, Borges (or an avatar
of Borges) finds comfort only in an idea that there is some
overarching meaning to the infinite (perhaps infinite) repetition.
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Which is the most human of thoughts, of course, the concept of
meaning. Which is also very predictable of humans. Just wait until
quantum computing takes off. Just wait until they find that boson
"god" particle. Just wait till they flip the Grid this summer, all
of which probably won't unmake existence somehow. Meaning, a human
desire, as predictable and probable a pursuit as it is now, will
become something they'll try to replicate-meaning, the thing
itself, and not the pursuit.
And they'll fail, I think. It should make sense on paper: reality
is something humans have yet to fully capture in art or mathematics
due to obvious limitations; the right algorithm, then, should
produce the most mathematically sound representation of reality
and, therefore, meaning, if either of these things exist and are
not, merely, human projections. But at least, like quarks and
bosons and dark matter, reality and meaning will have an existence
in theory, if not by direct observation, in nicely balanced
equations, eventually reproducible in text or images via some
crafty algorithms.
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Here's why I think they'll fail. Aside from the more abstract
idea that meaning finding itself negates itself (think of it this
way: meaning and proof of meaning are matter and antimatter; when
the two meet there is nothing), to produce human art a computer
would have to find, feel, absorb reality to the point it is
overcome, to the point it sobs for release. A computer perhaps
could replicate every possibility but could never transfer the
energy art requires to exist in the first place.
Proof? If proof exists of anything, this could be offered up as
an example of it. Science Daily's title is apt: Why Musicians Make
Us Weep And Computers Don't. The article details a study conducted
by neuroscientists comparing brain responses to music played by
humans and to music played by computers:
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The study also revealed that the brain was more likely to look for
musical meaning when the music was played by a pianist.
"This is similar to the response we see when the brain is
responding to language and working out what the words mean," says
Dr Koelsch. "Our results suggest that musicians actually tell us
something when they play. The brain responses show that when a
pianist plays a piece with emotional expression, the piece is
actually perceived as meaningful by listeners, even if they have
not received any formal musical training."
Why this complex, existential, quantum-theoretical, post-modern
monolog? First, I find it comforting to think that scientists'
efforts to negate themselves (and thus, the rest of us) are doomed
to fail in matters that, um, matter. Second, do a search on
automated content. Yes, algorithms already exist to replace writers
and content producers; they are there as algorithms to fool other
algorithms, ones from search engines.
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While such technology exists to generate money for humans via a
kind of Internet pollution, content consumers tolerate certain
parts per million so long as algorithms know their place, so long
as we can recognize them when we seem them, even if computers
can't.
Phil Parker, though, has "written" 200,000 books with the help
of an algorithm and a small staff (of people, not wood). A few
people have even bought them, even if some of the titles aren't
all that thrilling. One thing I'll stake my existence as a writer
on, though: there's not an ounce of soul in all 200,000.
Not that I've read them.
Point is: Real content speaks to real readers/listeners/viewers.
Real success online comes from real content producers.
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