A couple of weeks ago I fell into conversation with a teacher of music. She had just purchased my book, “Lost in the Labyrinth of My Mind” and our conversation turned to matters of creativity. I asked whether she believed that computers would ever be able to produce music of the same standard as that of Mozart and other great composers? She responded with a question of her own, “could a computer ever produce poetry of the same standard as that of the great poets?”
The above is an interesting question. There is a tendency perhaps inate in we humans to deny that something is possible merely on the grounds that it’s occurance fills us with forboding or abhorrence. However gut reactions are not (usually) the best means of answering complex questions.
As regards my own view of the matter, the simple answer is that I have no idea as to whether machines will ever be capable of producing works of artistic merit. The great advantage of we humans is that we possess emotions which are interwoven in our art whether literary, painting or musical. I suspect (and I am no scientist) that it will be easier for those working in the field of artificial intelligence to produce machines which are of similar intelligence (or perhaps exceed) that of humans. However to reproduce genuine emotion will, I suspect be a far more difficult task so intellectual pursuits may well be one of the last bastions to fall to AI. Its also perfectly possible that “true” AI will never be achieved as there is still much debate about what, exactly constitutes real intelligence, (merely because an extremely fast computer could, in the future have access to all known information and be able to process it at greater speed than a human would not make it more intelligent than mankind for intellectual abilities reside in far more than processing power).
Below is a piece of speculative fiction written by me in early 2015. As ever I would be interested in your views. https://newauthoronline.com/2015/01/18/robert/
Kevin