What does it mean to be human in a world where machines, too, can be artists? The Uncanny Muse explores the history of automation in the arts and delves into one of the most momentous and controversial aspects of AI: artificial creativity. The adoption of technology and machinery has long transformed the world, but as the potential for artificial intelligence expands, David Hajdu examines the new, increasingly urgent questions about technologys role in culture.
From the life-size mechanical doll that made headlines in Victorian London to the dolls modern AIpop star counterpart, Hajdu traces the fascinating, varied ways in which inventors and artists have sought to emulate mental processes and mechanise creative production. For decades, machines and artists have engaged in expressing the human conditionalong with the condition of living with machinesthrough player pianos, broadcasting technology, electric organs, digital movie effects, synthesisers and motion capture. By communicating and informing human knowledge, the machines have exerted considerable influence on the history of artand often more influence than humans have been willing to recognise. As Hajdu proclaims: before machine learning, there was machine teaching".
With thoughtful, wide-ranging and surprising turns from Berry Gordy and George Harrison to Andy Warhol and Stevie Wonder, David Hajdu takes a novel and contrarian approach: he sees how machines through the ages have enabled creativity, not stifled itand The Uncanny Muse sees no reason why this shouldnt be the case with AI today.
