Art from Google’s Magenta project
Advancements in technology have always been used by initiative artists from the creation of synthetic blue pigment to Andy Warhols Commodore art and more recently Jeff Koons with augmented reality.
When modern computer technology is used by artists it usually detaches the artist’s direct involvement with the outcomes and can be perceived as either an extension of the artist or to be considered not art at all which is an age-old argument of what is art?
Google has recently launched Magenta which is a project to create art and music using artificial intelligence which ignites many new discussions on what art is. Taking away the humanity, emotion, motivation of creating art, is it still art or would it be considered still part of the original creators of the algorithm, would they need to create an eco-system of algorithms to completely eradicate the human touch and would that lead to the creation of a self replicating artificial intelligence that would eradicate humans all together?
Art has always had big impacts throughout history but can this pursuit of what art is jeopardies human existence? In creating artificial intelligence the question of the conscious arises, how can a conscious being be created when we cannot prove consciousness? Is it even ethical to create artificial intelligence?