An interview with J. Craig Wheeler, Professor of astronomy of the University of Texas at Austin about his book, The Path to Singularity.
Explore how synthetic systems merge with organic experience in The Artificiality. Follow the journey from information to consciousness, where AI evolves from passive tools to active participants, reshaping reality, redefining intelligence, and challenging the boundaries of human experience.
Congratulations to the authors of of the Artificiality Book Awards 2024!
Apple's iPad Ad Disaster, AI Agents Webinar, Improving Your Prompts with Iterative Reasoning Techniques, AI & Accountability, and more!
I bleed six colors. I first programmed on an Apple II in 1982 and have used Apple products ever since. My loyalty is grounded in my belief that Apple products are the best tools for creating—from art to design to music to films.
In a dream-come-true moment, I joined Apple in 2001 to help build creative tools. I was lucky to be there at a time when it was still relatively small and Steve Jobs had a particular interest in my world. Apple was in crisis when Steve returned, in part, because one of the core customer categories, creative professionals, was at risk of disappearing. Avid announced it would leave the Mac, prompting Steve to acquire and hire my Final Cut Pro team from Macromedia. My mission at Apple was to help expand the software business beyond FCP, leading to a thrilling time of launching many products that helped creatives make their dreams real. From artists to photographers to musicians to film makers to writers, creatives stuck with Apple because Apple focused on creatives.
This wasn’t just good business—it was personal. Steve built Apple for creatives, especially the Crazy Ones. He wanted to make tools that helped them change the world. And it worked. Creatives have loved Apple because it loved them. And Apple’s tools have played a part in some of the most amazing creations.
My love of creating tools for creatives is why I find the recent Apple iPad ad so disappointing, crushing in fact. I wouldn’t be surprised if those responsible were simply trying to make a spectacle of how much could fit in an ultra thin iPad and thought using a TikTok craze of crushing things would appeal to the TikTok generation. But the reality is that they crushed those I consider to have been the most important customer segment the company has had for more than 40 years.
In the video, Apple uses an absurdly large crushing machine to destroy art, instruments, cameras, records, and games. A rainbow of paint sprays as a piano is shattered. Statues are contorted under the compactor’s pressure. In a particularly poignant moment, a computer displaying Final Cut Pro is crushed along with a lamp that is eerily similar to the iconic Pixar lamp, Luxo Jr.
My heart empties as I watch Apple crush the software that Steve used to reseed Apple. I am shocked to watch Apple crush an upright piano so similar to the “Imagine” Steinway played by Steve’s beloved John Lennon. And I am stunned to see Apple crush a lamp so similar to Luxo Jr.
As Ed Catmull said in 1998:
“Luxo Jr. sent shock waves through the entire industry—to all corners of computer and traditional animation. At that time, most traditional artists were afraid of the computer. They did not realize that the computer was merely a different tool in the artist's kit but instead perceived it as a type of automation that might endanger their jobs. Luckily, this attitude changed dramatically in the early ’80s with the use of personal computers in the home. The release of our Luxo Jr. . . .reinforced this opinion turnaround within the professional community.”
Today, it feels like Apple is reigniting those artists' fears by celebrating the crushing of artists’ tools and creations. As Cher sings, “Some men follow rainbows I am told, all I ever need is you,” Apple appears to be saying goodbye to the rainbow of colors which Steve described as “what this place stands for.” And as we enter a world of generative AI which presents an existential risk to human creativity, I wonder what Apple actually stands for anymore.
At Artificiality, we stand for human creativity. We embrace using AI as part of our creative process while insuring the creations are ours. This is why we stress the 'for our' part of designing A Mind for our Minds. Just as Steve's "bicycle for our minds" was 'for us,' the next generation of AI minds must be 'for us' too.
Apple has apologized for the ad but the damage is already done—and that damage extends well beyond Apple. Big Tech is rushing into a new AI world with a carefree attitude toward the impact of their innovations. These companies have embraced the profitable path of using users so it shouldn't be a surprise that they display little concern over a future that promises jobs lost, human content overwhelmed, education dismantled, and creativity crushed.
Make no mistake: at Artificiality, we believe in the potential for AI. But we also are intensely worried about a dystopian future. We keep searching for a modern-day Macintosh that stands for empowerment and creative freedom, ensuring that 2024 "won't be like 1984." But Big Tech seems to have different plans.
We will continue to write for "the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers" who are trying to make sense of what it means to be human in an increasingly artificial world. We will celebrate the possibilities while also calling out the risks and bad actors. We don't want to believe that our future is pretermined or that we have to follow Big Tech's rules. We want this new world of AI to work for us—and for our kids.
So thank you for being with us. It is because of your support that we can continue our work and maintain our hope to change the world for the better.
Creativity in Large-Scale Contexts: Guiding Creative Engagement and Exploration
By Jonathan S. Feinstein
Creativity is an endlessly fascinating concept. I've never heard anyone say they want to be less creative. We value our creativity enormously. Worries that machines might intrude or takeover feel existential. The idea that network analysis and machine learning might help us better understand creativity might seem ironic to some, but networks are how we are beginning think about creativity.
In a new book called Creativity in Large-Scale Contexts, Yale School of Management Professor Jonathan Feinstein explains his framework for understanding creativity as a network that spans the full context of someone's experience. He demonstrates—through visualizations and analysis of the lives of creatives across art, writing, science, and technology—how networks can capture the structure of creative environments by detailing both the elements and their interconnections. Elements are the building blocks or "raw materials" for creative thinking, while relationships allow the flow of ideas and the generation of novel connections.
Central to Feinstein's approach are the concepts of guiding conceptions and guiding principles. Guiding conceptions, which are individualistic, intuition-centric, and highly creative, help identify promising directions for exploration and generate seed projects. Guiding principles, on the other hand, are more widely accepted within a field and serve to filter out flawed seed projects while guiding the discovery of key elements that can transform a seed into a high-potential project.
This book offers new insights to deeply understand creativity, not only theoretically but also as practical concepts for innovation and discovery. We found it fascinating as it links the worlds of innovation and human creative pursuits with complexity and machine learning by applying network theory and analysis. It made us think differently about creativity in an AI age and we think it will do the same for you.
Our podcast interview with Feinstein will be released in a couple of weeks, giving you the perfect opportunity to read his book before hearing him elaborate on them in more depth.
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Writing and Conversations About AI (Not Written by AI)
