Tag: cybernetics

Science Machines

A “method” is a set of instructions fed into a cybernetic bio-technical machine called a “laboratory” that outputs an “experiment”.

Or something to that effect.

And then the artistry is in how that experiment comes together, much like the orchestra playing a symphony.
And this artistry occurs in the context of science as well. Or in the social construction of science.

The cybernetic machines madlib above show one way this can be constructed; of course there’s more, or other variations on a theme. It follows from the field of Science Studies – that understanding that science is a social undertaking – and so would likely be familiar to anyone aware of that field.

But I wanted to bring it up as it helps illustrate what we mean by “cybernetic bio-technical machine”. Bruno Latour would call this an “assemblage”. So swapping that in to our madlibs would look like: A “method” is a set of instructions fed into an assemblage called a “laboratory” that outputs an “experiment”. Which is much shorter and to the point, but ends up obscuring the details I wanted to focus on. Which in this case is nature of that machine.

By cybernetic and bio-technical, I mean that the machine is a combination of humans working with technology, in highly specialized ways, and those humans working with each other, as each of the examples we’ve used so far are most often done by people in groups.

An orchestra consists of musicians (the bio) each deeply focused on their instruments (the tech) working together to produce a symphony. So too with a film crew, their cameras, lenses, lights, microphones, and all the myriad tools that go into editing and finishing a film. Architecture and science are the same way.

But perhaps we need to add another term into our madlib. Where does the scientist fit into the above equation? Or the composer? Or any of the other creators, in relation to their specific assemblages? (I realized I’m playing fast and loose with my metaphors here; I trust you can follow along).

For a science machine: A “method” is a set of instructions written by a scientist fed into an assemblage called a “laboratory” that outputs an “experiment”.

(We added other creators to the footnote of the original post).

Each of these assemblages comes together under the auspice of a creator who crafts the set of instructions. This is where human agency lies – these things don’t instantiate on their own.

And to follow it back to the previous post, this pattern holds true with AI art as well. An allographic art form that follows the familiar pattern that we’ve seen above. At the time of this writing, there is no sentient AI on planet earth.

There is no autonomous art.

All art, even AI art, is human created, even if there are layers of machines behind the surface.

Cybernetic Machines: AI Art and Cultural Form

A “script” is a set of instructions fed into a cybernetic bio-technical machine called a “production company” that outputs a “movie”

A “composition” is a set of instructions fed into a cybernetic bio-technical machine called an “orchestra” that outputs a “symphony”.

A “blueprint” is a set of instructions fed into a cybernetic bio-technical machine called a “construction company” that outputs a “building”.

A “context model” is a set of instructions fed into a cybernetic bio-technical machine called an “AI” that outputs a “virtual world”.

Perhaps

Or perhaps all of the above.

These are all examples of “allographic arts” as introduced by Nelson Goodman back in 1962, versions of art that is crafted by others based on a set of instructions provided by the artist. this could be the director, the composer, the architect, as Goodman postulated, or a set of instructions followed by the Generative AI at the direction of the “Prompt Engineer”.

Of course “Prompt Engineer” is at once both too banal and too unrepresentative of what is going on in the artistic process here. The slightly more upscaled “Context Engineer” (for when one prompt isn’t enough) is similarly unsuitable here. Engineering has little to do with it at all, though much like our architect example above, engineering isn’t precluded from being a part of the process.

Perhaps it’s because the Generative AI tools are too new in their development to have a singular title, like composer or architect, or Madonna or Cher, and so we’re left with the dual names to describe them, by defining them as a variation on the thing that they are somewhat akin to. Think “software architect” or “3D modeler”. Too new not quite encapsulated in the name, the way “TV Producer” has collapsed into “showrunner” in the 21st century.

Maybe it’s in the name.

Or maybe it’s in what we make with it. The art form hasn’t coalesced yet. Again too new; too recently pulled from the primordial technocultural stew. In the early days of the form, we are left reproducing the elements of older media, the same way early television and film were often stage plays and vaudeville acts. We’re caught somewhere between Pong and Space Invaders in terms of development, with Elden Ring and GTA VI undreamed of in the distant horizon.

With that in mind, what will AI art actually look like? Once it comes into its own as cultural form? I hinter at it with Virtual Worlds above. These can be produced using traditional methods, of course, but maybe that’s but one way a fed set of prompts, of contexts, of world models can be realized. AI Art will almost assuredly look something barely glimpsed or imagined.

But I want to play in the holodeck for a moment.

Because I think that gets close to what we’re imagining here. The holodeck, famously introduced in the first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation “Encounter At Farpoint” (airdate 1987-09-28) and subsequently retconned and chronologically re-situated as typical with enduring narratives, would allow for the cast and crew to input a set of commands into the computer and allow it to generate the setting, players, dialogue and the like, along a relatively broad range of possibilities. The computer onboard was massively powerful, and generated these holographic simulations with relative ease, but the show(s) always made that distinction between the computer of the ship, and the AI embodied in more ambulatory agents like Lieutenant Commander Data. It stands to reason that the computer of a faster-than-light starship some 250 years in the future would be more that capable at the task at hand.

So perhaps this is what we’re moving towards, where the cultural form of AI art is more akin to an “experience” crafted by an “Imagineer”, though perhaps not in a way akin to a theme park ride held under copyright by the Disney Corporation.

We’re getting closer.

Perhaps we don’t have the words yet because we don’t know what that cultural form will be. It’s had to tell from our Pong-centered viewpoint here.

So let’s try to re-work our formula from above:

A “prompt” is a set of instructions fed into a cybernetic bio-technical machine called an “AI” that outputs an “experience”.

Not bad, though perhaps a little generic. But what it gains in that genericity is that it is divorced from the digital. No “cyber” or “virtual” prefixes are to be found. And that allows for growth, for change, for possibility – for the cultural form of AI art to transcend the digital / material barrier, to allow for an full environment to be developed like within the holodeck, or for humans to interact with material AI agents, like the hosts within Westworld. We’re still bouncing around that “theme park” model, but there is art within that creation, of the building and shaping of a full sensory experience.

And the play is the thing, a phrase that was uttered in the holodeck on more than one occasion, I’m sure. So let’s leave it there, our recognition of the incipient cultural form of AI art, and go out into the world to hunt for new words, new worlds, and discover what the future might be.