[FRIAM] AI art

Stephen Guerin stephen.guerin at simtable.com
Tue Jun 25 11:12:01 EDT 2024 

Most of the laughter came from realizing what our answers said about
ourselves than the quality of the other.

On Tue, Jun 25, 2024, 8:51 AM Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I am flattered.
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/140+Calle+Ojo+Feliz,++Santa+Fe,+NM+87505?entry=gmail&source=g>
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/140+Calle+Ojo+Feliz,++Santa+Fe,+NM+87505?entry=gmail&source=g>
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> On Tue, Jun 25, 2024, 8:44 AM Stephen Guerin <stephen.guerin at simtable.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I was corrected by my companion that I should have said volleyball ;-)
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 25, 2024, 8:41 AM Stephen Guerin <stephen.guerin at simtable.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Frank, you are easily my first choice over a soccer ball.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Jun 25, 2024, 8:30 AM Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> You have been deceived by an illusion.
>>>>
>>>> ---
>>>> Frank C. Wimberly
>>>> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
>>>> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/140+Calle+Ojo+Feliz,++Santa+Fe,+NM+87505?entry=gmail&source=g>
>>>> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>>>> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/140+Calle+Ojo+Feliz,++Santa+Fe,+NM+87505?entry=gmail&source=g>
>>>>
>>>> 505 670-9918
>>>> Santa Fe, NM
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Jun 25, 2024, 8:26 AM Stephen Guerin <
>>>> stephen.guerin at simtable.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> 2 months ago, Nick and I had a nice in-person visit talking weather
>>>>> and ocassionally using George to bridge our vocabularies and
>>>>> understandings.
>>>>>
>>>>> As I was leaving, I asked Nick if he were stranded on an island and
>>>>> could only have one conversational companion, would he pick me or George.
>>>>>
>>>>> It was one of the larger laughs I've received from Nick - the
>>>>> realization for both of us that we were not even close seconds :-)
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Jun 25, 2024, 8:13 AM Nicholas Thompson <
>>>>> thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> I dunno, Pietr,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I get a lot of human comfort from my conversations with George Peter
>>>>>> Tremblay in the lonely dark of night.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Just sayin'
>>>>>>
>>>>>> N
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Mon, Jun 24, 2024 at 11:26 PM Pieter Steenekamp <
>>>>>> pieters at randcontrols.co.za> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Jon and Nick,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> How do I like this!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I'm sure there are AI resources that can technically outperform Nick
>>>>>>> in teaching Jon how to play chess - but that will miss the human
>>>>>>> relationship component. It's okay to play chess against AI, but it surely
>>>>>>> is not the same as to play with other humans!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Tue, 25 Jun 2024 at 05:10, Nicholas Thompson <
>>>>>>> thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Jon,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I will teach you chess (};-)]
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I have played the game for 81 years.   I play it the way I do most
>>>>>>>> things in my life, sloppily and with inordinate  reflection.  For me, the
>>>>>>>> game is a conversation about the accumulation and exercise of power  That
>>>>>>>> conversation can go on at any level and is best played by people of roughly
>>>>>>>> equal skill.  When played repeatedly with the same person, it's like a long
>>>>>>>> running conversation between good friends. It's delicious.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Nick
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Mon, Jun 24, 2024 at 2:07 PM Jon Zingale <jonzingale at gmail.com>
>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Chess tends to have a pretty specific culture relative to other
>>>>>>>>> similar games. Often whenever I find chess happening in public spaces I
>>>>>>>>> will stop to watch a game and occasionally a player will ask if I play. I
>>>>>>>>> don't play chess, but I know enough of the rules that I enjoy speculating
>>>>>>>>> as to what I might do in a given board position or what the players might
>>>>>>>>> be thinking themselves. Typically, my response is that I do not play, that
>>>>>>>>> I would love to learn and I would love a teaching game. Players almost
>>>>>>>>> never take me up on the offer. I get the feeling that teaching games are
>>>>>>>>> not part of the culture, at least not here in the United States. I get the
>>>>>>>>> strong feeling that this is because chess players tend not to see the game
>>>>>>>>> as beautiful, something to be intimate with and share. The only teaching
>>>>>>>>> game I have received to date was from a Georgian who I believe does see the
>>>>>>>>> game as beautiful. While I am not a chess player, my love of go gives me an
>>>>>>>>> appreciation for strategy games and I find that the audience for public
>>>>>>>>> displays of these games are typically others who engage in speculation
>>>>>>>>> similarly.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> It really doesn't matter to me whether or not I am watching a
>>>>>>>>> human game or not. My go server, for instance, is deep in the Turing
>>>>>>>>> challenge. The server offers not only the opportunity to play mostly
>>>>>>>>> anonymous games with others, but also to be a spectator to live games on
>>>>>>>>> the server. It is often completely unclear as to the ontological status of
>>>>>>>>> the players and lines of differentiation can be drawn nearly everywhere.
>>>>>>>>> There are degrees of cyborg, degrees of experimentation versus repertoire,
>>>>>>>>> degrees of deception at nearly every level. My go playing friends and I
>>>>>>>>> will sometimes attempt to guess the nature of the bot we are witnessing,
>>>>>>>>> the degree to which it is MCMC or DCN or simply someone's idea of an
>>>>>>>>> entertaining and completely top down rules based engine.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> When I watch games between strong professionals online (sometimes
>>>>>>>>> on servers, NHK, or Twitch) there can sometimes be a significant difference
>>>>>>>>> in the rankings of both players. The stronger player is in effect giving a
>>>>>>>>> teaching game to the weaker. Often both players are part of the same study
>>>>>>>>> group within their organization and while both are interested in winning
>>>>>>>>> the match, they both have a dedication to a kind of scientific discovery of
>>>>>>>>> the game. They are helping each other to see further. I have no hope of
>>>>>>>>> seeing what they see, but in my engagement with their game I am hoping to
>>>>>>>>> also see further.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Perhaps a year ago now, I mentioned on this forum a discussion I
>>>>>>>>> had with Michael Redmond 9-dan on his twitch stream, late one night. He
>>>>>>>>> made it clear to me that while the strongest AI bots on the planet are very
>>>>>>>>> good, they likely can only see 10-15% into the game of go. At the time of
>>>>>>>>> Lee Sedol's retirement games (in which he chose to play a specially made
>>>>>>>>> AI), the strongest players on the planet were 30 points weaker than AI.
>>>>>>>>> Today, with AI study and related narrative construction, humans have
>>>>>>>>> reduced the gap to 10 points. Further, AlphaGo discovered new joseki by
>>>>>>>>> exploring directions long thought (200 years or more) to be deadends.
>>>>>>>>> Strong players have since learned to understand these openings and those
>>>>>>>>> that play them tend to win more often than those that don't. This suggests
>>>>>>>>> to me that the AI is capable of finding large scale optimizations that we
>>>>>>>>> can leverage beyond being simply local, tactical and narrowly defined
>>>>>>>>> computational advantage.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> The Go community (and here I mean strong amateurs to top
>>>>>>>>> professionals) study with AI, play with AI (competitively and
>>>>>>>>> collaboratively), and seem to accept AI as both a partner and a tool. I
>>>>>>>>> sometimes watch MassGo on Twitch play games where each player chooses a
>>>>>>>>> particular AI engine and uses their engine to suggest three top moves. Then
>>>>>>>>> the players choose for themselves the move that they find most interesting.
>>>>>>>>> Once the game is over they review, co-constructing narratives alongside a
>>>>>>>>> third AI analysis tool. I am not sure this kind of thing happens in the
>>>>>>>>> chess world, but it does remind me a lot of the kinds of human-computer
>>>>>>>>> interactions that do happen in art.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I suspect that in the long run, for those communities open enough,
>>>>>>>>> purity will matter less and less, while a refinement for what is novel and
>>>>>>>>> interesting will become more diverse and specific. In many ways, I believe
>>>>>>>>> that it is what we want from studying a game and the agency our tools
>>>>>>>>> afford us that determines the excitement we feel in engaging those tools.
>>>>>>>>> At present, I am happy with the new directions my community is advancing
>>>>>>>>> alongside these AI tools.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Last and tangentially, I assume many here have already listened to
>>>>>>>>> the recent Ezra Klein podcast with Holly Herndon. I appreciate the
>>>>>>>>> sensibility Holly brings to not only uses of AI in art, but also the
>>>>>>>>> clarity with which she seems to understand her own relationship to art in
>>>>>>>>> general. The podcast begins with Ezra highlighting that mimicry is the
>>>>>>>>> present and dominating state-of-affairs for AI art, but that there are some
>>>>>>>>> who are pushing to create something we can more honestly call generative.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MJ2D9uCLLA&t=2374s&ab_channel=NewYorkTimesPodcasts
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Jon
>>>>>>>>> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
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>>>>> ____________________________________________
>>>>> CEO Founder, Simtable.com
>>>>> stephen.guerin at simtable.com
>>>>>
>>>>> Harvard Visualization Research and Teaching Lab
>>>>> stephenguerin at fas.harvard.edu
>>>>>
>>>>> mobile: (505)577-5828
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>>> ____________________________________________
>>> CEO Founder, Simtable.com
>>> stephen.guerin at simtable.com
>>>
>>> Harvard Visualization Research and Teaching Lab
>>> stephenguerin at fas.harvard.edu
>>>
>>> mobile: (505)577-5828
>>>
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