Wang Feng: Such an aesthetic sense - the aesthetic problem of artificial intelligence

Source: Chinese Social Sciences Digest, No. 1, 2023, P57-P58

Author's institution: School of Communication, East China Normal University, extracted from Journal of Tongji University, Issue 4, 2022, Xiang Jiangtao

As artificial intelligence penetrates into the field of art and achieves good results in the fields of music, painting, calligraphy, poetry, etc., artificial intelligence art has gradually become a member of the art community. A conundrum in AI aesthetics: Is there beauty in AI art?

Artificial intelligence: the indirectness of sensation, the directness of effects

Artificial intelligence imitates human capabilities or functions, and artificial intelligence can only talk about functions, not capabilities.

If we acknowledge the fundamental difference between AI and humans, we may clear up many misconceptions. From a survivalist perspective, AI can't do much, and Dreyfus argues that "we should create AI by modeling the brain's ability to learn rather than symbolic representations of the world." Searle, who is close to Dreyfus's position, is even more adamant that artificial intelligence can think, which is a theoretical error, and the so-called artificial intelligence thinking is a false thinking. It can be inferred that the beauty of artificial intelligence must also be a false feeling. The Searle-Dreyfusian view elicits a lot of sympathy, but fails to respond to the growing state of AI art. If we take a step forward from aesthetic theory, we may come to a completely different conclusion than the views of humanist philosophers such as Searle and Dreyfus. We also acknowledge the difference between humans and artificial intelligence, which is no different from the views of humanistic philosophers, but the difference is in the criteria by which intelligence and sensation are judged. While traditional theories of art and aesthetics assume that works of art come from originality, from deep inner feelings or a full heart, AI presents us with a new challenge without which art can also be generated. This leads us to reflect on which criteria we use to make aesthetic judgments.

If we see human abilities as a two-way combination of body and brain, feeling and reason, we will find that artificial intelligence is difficult to have the broad perception of humans, those perceptions that can evolve into calculations will be mastered by artificial intelligence, and those perceptions that cannot be transformed into calculations can only be owned by natural humans. From this point on, it seems that certain bodily sensations cannot be calculated, and thus artificial intelligence cannot have the directness of feelings.

Transform: Complement the model

Artificial intelligence undoubtedly imitates human capabilities or functions, and transferring human functions to artificial intelligence is a pre-set structure, but this structure is not real.

There is a hidden perspective in this structure, which must be complemented. The juxtaposition of humans and artificial intelligence seems to separate the two, but it is not. In this juxtaposition, a dominant human dimension is hidden, which resides in the depths of the juxtaposition. The juxtaposition of human and artificial intelligence is a model of comparative thinking, which seems to be objective and neutral, without any position, but this seemingly neutral position is problematic. If we only use opposing perspectives or juxtapositions, it is easy to conclude that humans and artificial intelligence are ultimately opposed. If there is a structural complement of meaning, revealing who will ultimately use AI, then we will not worry about reaching a singularity one day when AI breaks away from human control and in turn controls or even destroys humanity. From the perspective of the social process of technological development, even if the future singularity comes and artificial intelligence replaces human beings, we will not be as fearful as the end is coming as described in science fiction works, but rush with joy and warmly embrace the arrival of that moment. Therefore, the judgment of the singularity cannot be divorced from the foothold of the times. This is one side of the problem, and on the other hand, we must add the "development" perspective. Due to the development of the times and technological changes, people's concepts are changing all the time. What seems to mankind today as a singularity may be seen only as an inevitable process in the future.

Aesthetic effect: imitation and if

Artificial intelligence imitation is the exploration of the effect of aesthetic feeling. Does artificial intelligence have some form of aesthetic sense? This is a problem. Artificial intelligence can achieve a certain aesthetic effect, artificial intelligence feels different from human feeling, and these two opposing situations seem to be obviously correct facts. There is no objection to these two facts. But the two very different judgments derived from these two facts, namely the negation of AI aesthetics and the affirmation of AI aesthetics, are both problematic. Here we will look for another theoretical way out based on these two seemingly opposing facts.

A certain beauty of artificial intelligence is not the aesthetic feeling of people, but there are similarities between them, and this similarity does not exist in the mechanism of action of the two, but in the aesthetic effect. We can say that this aesthetic effect is like this, it is like human beauty, but not human aesthetic feeling.

The term aesthetic sense is meant to express the dislocation of a particular aesthetic system. Aesthetic data must be input and output through the computing system, which is closely related to the system and concept of aesthetics, so the aesthetic sense of artificial intelligence is only a disciplinary imitation of human beauty, and it is not possible to creatively copy it like people.

AI aesthetics is very different from current aesthetic concepts. In simple words, the connection between humans and beauty is completely different from the association between artificial intelligence and beauty. When we regard aesthetic function as a possibility based on a computational model that can be displayed, we establish a special processing model for aesthetics, which has not appeared before, and the intervention of artificial intelligence in literature and art allows us to discover the extent to which artificial intelligence can achieve, it imitates all aspects of human ability, and in some levels even exceeds the specific ability of people, and its imitation is not an infinite imitation of human ability, but a limited imitation. This limitation undoubtedly comes from the aesthetic expression model of artificial intelligence, and the basic rules of this model must come from our understanding of aesthetic principles and rules.

How to understand aesthetics

Aesthetics is a new word, created entirely for AI aesthetics. This concept is conducive to distinguishing artificial intelligence from the concept of human beauty.

The concept of aesthetics is an important anthropological concept. We assume that there are various experiences of beauty in beauty, and these beautiful experiences must come from our hearts, and if they do not come from the heart, we assume that it is not real, does not have the meaning of direct experience, that is, the meaning triggered by the body. Beauty, therefore, is both a result of feelings and a guarantee of all sensibility obtained in beauty.

The word "aesthetic sense" is to express the state of artificial intelligence judgment that is close to human aesthetic judgment, but different from human aesthetic judgment, so we call it aesthetic sense in a slightly paradoxical way. The peculiarity of this concept is that, on the surface, it directly presents the connotation of mechanical reproduction.

There is also a sense of aesthetics hidden in the so-called beauty, but the real statement we have to make is more than that, and we have to take risks to further distinguish: the ideas discussed above are based on human concepts and experiences, and do not add such aesthetic properties as artificial intelligence art and aesthetic creation, and only on the basis of new aesthetic properties will we understand the aesthetic concept of post-humans. If we admit that artificial intelligence can create art, the various qualities displayed by its works are undoubtedly quite close to human artistic creation. We used to think that artistic creation is an externalized expression of a full heart, which cannot be stated and marked by rules, but artificial intelligence art clearly refutes such a concept of artistic creation. It is impossible to talk about the creation of artificial intelligence outside the rules, and even further judge that the creation of artificial intelligence is originally the construction and practicality of rule-based computational models. Admitting this will not lead to the collapse of human aesthetics, but will only allow us to discover that in addition to human aesthetic coordinates, we can establish another aesthetic coordinate system, and it is possible to communicate between these two coordinate systems.

Transform the aesthetic coordinate system

The aesthetic sense of artificial intelligence not only takes into account the generation of beauty in human aesthetic concepts, but also points out the basis for the fundamental differences contained in artificial intelligence artistic creation or aesthetic effects, although such concepts are derogated in the current humanistic aesthetic concepts, but through this depreciated concept, we may move towards a broad future where artificial intelligence creation and human creation promote each other and advance harmoniously.

From these two concepts, we can find the difference between artificial intelligence and human aesthetic feelings, it is completely based on the emergence of artificial intelligence art as an opportunity, from then on we can compare human art with non-human art, they are the same or similar in effect, and such the same or similar are inseparable from the intermediary of people. Without human activities, there would be no artistic activity at all, no artificial intelligence art, and no form such as aesthetics and aesthetics. There is a huge gap between the science fiction imagination and the reality of artificial intelligence, and if we bring such imagination when dealing with the judgment and understanding of artificial intelligence, we will have the wrong misplaced scope. This requires constant clarification and identification.

The transformation of the aesthetic coordinate system is a difficult task, and the artificial intelligence aesthetic coordinate system is a new system, and it is foreseeable that the coordinate transformation will be a long-term process.