Blog

1. Introduction

“Art is a human activity having for its purpose the transmission to others of the highest and best feelings to which men have risen.”^[1] This is how Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, one of the greatest authors of all time, defines art in his essay What is Art?. The way Tolstoy feels about the connection between the creation of art and humanity is probably shared by many other people. It is a very common viewpoint to see art as something that is deeply human, serving to express feelings, opinions, experiences of one human, the artist, to others, the recipients. However, in recent years, artificial intelligence algorithms – having already successfully entered various other areas of our lives, ranging from education to healthcare – are gaining ground in this very area that is supposed to be at the core of what makes us human: the creation of art.

Naturally, this development gives rise to a remarkable amount of questions, for example: Can an algorithm truly be creative? Is it able to produce human-like art? And if so, what does this say about the human conception of art and creativity? Is art truly a „human activity“?

„AI and Aesthetics: Can machines be creative?“ weiterlesen

A. Turing schlägt in seinem 1950 veröffentlichten Artikel „Computing Machinery and Intelligence“ gleich zu Anfang vor, die Frage „Can machines think?“ zu erwägen. Auch führt er eine Reihe von Einwänden gegen diese Frage an. Diese Semesterarbeit stellt sich zur Aufgabe herauszufinden, welcher dieser Einwände der stichhaltigste bezüglich der philosophischen Relevanz ist. „Welcher der von Turing diskutierten Einwände ist der bedeutendste?“ weiterlesen

In 1984, John Searle published his work Minds, Brains, and Science^[2], illustrating his conception of artificial intelligence. There are several conceptual key arguments he addresses in this work, including the thought experiment of the Chinese room, which later found entrance in philosophical encyclopedias as Searle’s Chinese Room Argument. ^[1]

„Summary of Lecture 3 – John Searle, Can Computers think? (1984)“ weiterlesen