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Machine learning creates professional level photographs


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Thought experiment: give a blind person, a three year old, a chimpanzee, and a robot a camera and have them all go out and take a lot of photos. Throw in a person from different birth cohorts up to age 100. Then, randomly print a bunch of them up for a gallery presentation, matted and framed. How different will these photos be from what is already commonly seen as contemporary conceptual art? Who decides?

 

 

 

Aren’t we all just robots with cameras ?

 

Wouldn't that be the same as aesthetically conforming objects randomly appearing in nature, without conscious inputs. The difference of such objects with art is, there is no artist's expression involved.

 

These cases are different though from an AI robot taking pictures, who works via well defined rules as opposed to a random process.

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"These cases are different though from an AI robot taking pictures, who works via well defined rules as opposed to a random process."

 

Today, Supriyo

 

And there's tomorrow..

 

"And the origin and meaning of the word science? Required in order to do just about anything. "Sandy.

 

Look in your pocket Sandy at that little phone; that was once tomorrow...not so long ago.

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Wouldn't that be the same as aesthetically conforming objects randomly appearing in nature, without conscious inputs. The difference of such objects with art is, there is no artist's expression involved.

 

These cases are different though from an AI robot taking pictures, who works via well defined rules as opposed to a random process.

 

Well Supriyo, now you have done it--opened the door and let Schrodinger's Cat out for a walk on the slippery rocks... Yes, the terminus to that line comes from Edie Brickell's "What I Am," which started a loop play in my head about 5 posts ago... o_O

 

The infamous "thing in itself" comes into play here--a world filled with 'noumenons' that do not require us to lend them meaning or purpose for them to exist and contain meaning in their own right of 'self-standing.' Consider for a moment all of the photos of bugs, leaves, landscapes, and even human produced fabric elements taken out of their greater context. In our happy process of rationalizing and making the fact that everything happens at once and creating a 'safe' perception of that sort of structured chaos--many things are ignored or simply melded into a more gestalt palette. We touched on this in a recent discussion here.

 

One may very well posit that photography is a random process--I would state that this is hardly so even in the case of the most serendipitous photo opportunity. We are all operating on a set of set of 'well defined' cognitive and perceptual rules--otherwise we would not "see" the vast majority of subjects that we choose to interpret via the medium of photography. This predisposition to perceptual selection is likely what forms the foundation of 'becoming' a photographer--as opposed to just a casual observer moving through our space-time continuum with that damned live/dead cat in tow.

 

Now the really hard question. With either AI or individual brains--where has the set of "well defined rules" originated from? Photography contains its own prescribed rules of what is art and what is that famous "Kodak Moment" dad created in the back yard with the kids. Those who know the rules--and either how to apply them or how to break them in alluring fashion--are the ones who succeed with art--or redefine what the art is about. BTW, any kind of rules are a form of algorithm--the input of multiple sources of data to arrive at a selection of actions or inactions. How the brain creates these algorithms is the NEXT huge step forward in the development of AI, as this is not all simply reducible to algebraic structure. About that singularity thing... :rolleyes:

 

Gotta go, as the musical brain shuffle has just started playing Joan Osborne's "What If God Was One of Us?" :cool:

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 "I See Things..."

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I think, sometimes, like when nature seems to be imitating art, which actually does happen, I would consider nature to be art even though there's no artist's intent. I don't think an artist's intent is necessary for art. This is where I think art can come into play through a way of seeing and not only through the material production of something. Akin to conceptual art. I see a church in the fog in muted colors and I get a certain kind of feeling from it and I relate it to Monet's Rouen Cathedral in the fog. I think there's art in that. I think there's art in nature. I think there's art in nature even when we don't relate it to already existing art. I think we frame nature artfully in our perceptions all the time. I think there's also art in the buzz and hum and lights and life of the city. I think art can be in the combination of stimulus and response and not just in the combination of intention, creation, and response.

 

I think sometimes art comes into existence by declaration, by declaration of non-artists, even though there was no intention to create art by an artist. I also think it can be temporary, even fleeting.

 

Supriyo, I agree with your saying the cases you were discussing are different from AI creations.

 

I wonder if someday we'll discover just how "artificial" human intelligence is. You never know! (as the Twilight Zone music rises in the background . . .)

 

These distinctions we're assuming may slowly slip away.

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We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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"About that singularity thing"

 

Thing for us but not a thing for A1.Perhaps they will try to explain it to us....but methinks it would like explaining calculus to our pet dog. Maybe we will become pets loved and cherished or perhaps as simple minded parents who are cherished and of need of a lot of loving...

Should we not have eaten that apple on reflection. Perhaps the apple will be taken away from us so we will no longer feel the need to pass waste in our home or go out and kill someone..

 

The future seems bright.

Edited by Allen Herbert
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Don't use TV, Phone almost never -- no issue with useful technology, but any day I chose to, where I live I can enjoy a lifestyle almost entirely in another era.

No interest in being "assimilated".

 

Ahh, a Sophisticated Luddite! :p

 

But you have been assimilated--you simply choose which tools are useful at a particular time. I enjoy vintage fountain pens--writing by hand almost exclusively with them. Yet neither of us entered or interacted with this venue called PN and the innernutz via fountain pen... ;)

 

I find myself surrounded by a growing population of souls who have never seen a rotary dial phone outside of a movie or yard sale. This was my entire childhood. Now I have a tiny bug in my ear and a thing the size of a small paper notepad in my pocket. No buttons needed--just say "Call Donna" or "Call Work" and the deed is done. In 30 years all of this is likely to be wearable tech--even to the point of corneal implants that provide the visual interface. Contact lenses that do this are presently in development. This stuff is not science fiction anymore. Hell, my phone is already making unsolicited suggestions as to where I eat, shop, get gas, or watch/listen to. Those that have been conditioned properly and live with their phone in hand most of the day are already mindlessly dancing to the tune.

 

Hey, is that a Pokemon over there? :cool:

 "I See Things..."

The FotoFora Community Experience [Link]

A new community for creative photographers.  Come join us!

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Science Fiction the forerunner of Science fact.

Proviso: Good / intelligent Sci Fi.

 

Ahh, a Sophisticated Luddite! :p

As to the Divine Boy, I think not. The difference is I am not surrounded -- at least at any meaningful distance.

You might check Beloit College list of things incoming Freshmen know nothing about, unless you are spinning on that. Originally intended for the Profs.

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The machine learning linked in the OP is 100% human driven. It requires far more human input that "straight" photography. If you want to complain about comparative quantities of non-human creation, complain about straight photography. The camera is a machine.

 

Non-human "straight"-ness is what many claim is the great virtue of "pure" photography. Manipulation = more human. Non-manipulation = more machine.

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Aren’t we all just robots with cameras ?

 

Yes, but still there are subtle differences.

AI is not the Hollywood vision of a self-concious robot. Even if anyone would want to go down that path, it's far off from today. And, AI and Deep Learning aren't Sci-Fi, they're today. Deep Learning is all about having enough data for algoritms to establish similarities, and deduct based on those. Language and image recognition are probably the widest used today (things as Google Translator, for example, use Deep Learning).

Now, arguably that is a process that takes place in all of us (taking our cultural habits, surroundings, education and upbringing, and apply these experiences upon new situations), but all of us are working with a slightly different dataset, different weightings in the algoritm, different interpretations of similar data and different views on what similarities are. A much more complex mechanism, and far less likely to repeat itself identical (whereas Deep Learning would reach the same conclusion provided data doesn't radically change). AI and Deep Learning are at present much more about being able to more naturally interact and take more forms and variations of input, and yet come to reasoned and logical results; the quest isn't autonomous thinking. The utopian/dystopian visions of robots superseding us do not really apply here.

 

Some may have read this thread on colouring B&W photos. I tried it with several photos, and what struck me most was that most results were very saturated and overdone in colours. But consider that the big data used for these kind of Deep Learning exercises are most likely the likes of Instagram and Flicks, those colours are actually quite typical for the average, and that's what I'd expect AI/Deep Learning to come up with. It doesn't make deliberate choices, the one big deliberate choice is what data to feed it and how to program its algoritms, and those are still human jobs.

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Non-human "straight"-ness is what many claim is the great virtue of "pure" photography. Manipulation = more human. Non-manipulation = more machine.

A somewhat singular way to look at it.

 

Though I don't subscribe to a purist photographic philosophy and often think people express an unfortunate cult-like attitude in favor of it, a more genuine straight photography orientation is very human. It expresses the desire to keep oneself out of something and let it unfold and be seen without intervention. It can be as human as the human desire for voyeurism or the human desire for journalism or reportage.

 

And, while I'm also open to various kinds of photographic manipulation for a variety of reasons, much manipulation I see is very, and sometimes too, machine driven. The computer (software) can do it so let's do it. Many manipulation decisions I see are made in a machine-like way, simply imitating the extremes of what's been seen before.

 

Good straight photography has a human touch, in that it comes across as empathetic in a very human way to what the event being straightly photographed was and often has the feel of something unique rather than programmed.

We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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When we can't tell the difference anymore between A.I. and human consciousness the preference towards the latter becomes a moot point.

 

Its actually not a moot point. Hypothetically speaking, even if machines can emulate human consciousness one day, they will still retain all the advantages of a machine, i.e. lack of tiredness, more physical power, speed of analysis, weather resistance. All these included, machines possessing human consciousness will conveniently outrank humans.

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One may very well posit that photography is a random process--I would state that this is hardly so even in the case of the most serendipitous photo opportunity. We are all operating on a set of set of 'well defined' cognitive and perceptual rules--otherwise we would not "see" the vast majority of subjects that we choose to interpret via the medium of photography. This predisposition to perceptual selection is likely what forms the foundation of 'becoming' a photographer--as opposed to just a casual observer moving through our space-time continuum with that damned live/dead cat in tow.

 

Thanks Patrick, for your thoughtful comment. I don't think photography is a random process either. However, in the experiment Steve described, where he suggested giving cameras to blind people and chimpanzees, it essentially becomes a random process. Yes, we do operate at times via well defined cognitive and perceptual rules, but we also break those rules from time to time to hit new grounds --- IMO, its what differentiates us from an AI robot at it's current state.

 

Now the really hard question. With either AI or individual brains--where has the set of "well defined rules" originated from?

 

It is indeed the hard question, the holy grail of AI research. Perhaps we underwent some form of singularity in our evolutionary history that made us human and allowed us to dominate over all other life forms. If our machines undergo similar singularity, may be it will be our turn this time to be dominated :confused:.

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