The topics of human enhancement and human augmentation have been featured here a number of times from a number of vantage points, including that of a video game seires with some thoughtful story lines known under the Deus Ex banner. (My August 18, 2011 posting, . August 30, 2011 posting, and Sept. 1, 2016 posting are three, which mention Deus Ex in the title but there may be others where the game is noted in the posting.)
A March 19, 2021 posting by Timothy Geigner for Techdirt offers a more fulsome but still brief description of the games along with a surprising declaration (it’s too real) by the game’s creator (Note: Links have been removed),
The Deus Ex franchise has found its way onto Techdirt’s pages a couple of times in the past. If you’re not familiar with the series, it’s a cyberpunk-ish take on the near future with broad themes around human augmentation, and the weaving of broad and famous conspiracy theories. That perhaps makes it somewhat ironic that several of our posts dealing with the franchise have to do with mass media outlets getting confused into thinking its augmentation stories were real life, or the conspiracy theories that centered around leaks for the original game’s sequel were true. The conspiracy theories woven into the original Deus Ex storyline were of the grand variety: takeover of government by biomedical companies pushing a vaccine for a sickness it created, the illuminati, FEMA [US Federal Emergency Management Agency] takeovers, AI-driven surveillance of the public, etc.
And it’s the fact that such conspiracy-driven thinking today led Warren Spector, the creator of the series, to recently state that he probably wouldn’t have created the game today if given the chance. [See pull quote below]
… I’d like to focus on how clearly this illustrates the artistic nature of video games. The desire, or not, to create certain kinds of art due to the reflection such art receives from the broader society is exactly the kind of thing artists operating in other artforms have to deal with. Art imitates life, yes, but in the case of speculative fiction like this, it appears that life can also imitate art. Spector notes that seeing what has happened in the world since Deus Ex was first released in 2000 has had a profound effect on him as an artist. [See pull quote below]
It was possible for Geigner even back to an Oct. 18, 2013 posting to write about a UK newspaper that confused Deus Ex with reality,
… I bring you the British tabloid, The Sun, and their amazing story about an augmented mechanical eyeball that, if associated material is to be believed, allows you to see through walls, color-codes friends and enemies, and permits telescopic zoom. Here’s the reference from The Sun.
Oops. See, part of the reason that Sarif Industries’ cybernetic implants are still in their infancy is that the company doesn’t exist. Sarif Industries is a fictitious company from a cyberpunk video game, Deus Ex, set in a future Detroit. …
There’s more about Spector’s latest comments at a 2021 Game Developers Conference in a March 15, 2021 article by Riley MacLeod for Kotaku. There’s more about Warren Spector here. I always thought Deus Ex was developed by Canadian company, Eidos Montréal and, fter reading the company’s Wikipedia entry, it seems I may have been only partially correct.
Getting back to Deus Ex being ‘too real’, it seems to me that the line between science fiction and reality is increasingly frayed.
Clearly a lawyer wrote this June 26, 2017 essay on theconversation.com (Note: A link has been removed),
When a group of museums and researchers in the Netherlands unveiled a portrait entitled The Next Rembrandt, it was something of a tease to the art world. It wasn’t a long lost painting but a new artwork generated by a computer that had analysed thousands of works by the 17th-century Dutch artist Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn.
The computer used something called machine learning [emphasis mine] to analyse and reproduce technical and aesthetic elements in Rembrandt’s works, including lighting, colour, brush-strokes and geometric patterns. The result is a portrait produced based on the styles and motifs found in Rembrandt’s art but produced by algorithms.
…
But who owns creative works generated by artificial intelligence? This isn’t just an academic question. AI is already being used to generate works in music, journalism and gaming, and these works could in theory be deemed free of copyright because they are not created by a human author.
This would mean they could be freely used and reused by anyone and that would be bad news for the companies selling them. Imagine you invest millions in a system that generates music for video games, only to find that music isn’t protected by law and can be used without payment by anyone in the world.
Unlike with earlier computer-generated works of art, machine learning software generates truly creative works without human input or intervention. AI is not just a tool. While humans program the algorithms, the decision making – the creative spark – comes almost entirely from the machine.
It could have been someone involved in the technology but nobody with that background would write “… something called machine learning … .” Andres Guadamuz, lecturer in Intellectual Property Law at the University of Sussex, goes on to say (Note: Links have been removed),
Unlike with earlier computer-generated works of art, machine learning software generates truly creative works without human input or intervention. AI is not just a tool. While humans program the algorithms, the decision making – the creative spark – comes almost entirely from the machine.
That doesn’t mean that copyright should be awarded to the computer, however. Machines don’t (yet) have the rights and status of people under the law. But that doesn’t necessarily mean there shouldn’t be any copyright either. Not all copyright is owned by individuals, after all.
Companies are recognised as legal people and are often awarded copyright for works they don’t directly create. This occurs, for example, when a film studio hires a team to make a movie, or a website commissions a journalist to write an article. So it’s possible copyright could be awarded to the person (company or human) that has effectively commissioned the AI to produce work for it.
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Things are likely to become yet more complex as AI tools are more commonly used by artists and as the machines get better at reproducing creativity, making it harder to discern if an artwork is made by a human or a computer. Monumental advances in computing and the sheer amount of computational power becoming available may well make the distinction moot. At that point, we will have to decide what type of protection, if any, we should give to emergent works created by intelligent algorithms with little or no human intervention.
The most sensible move seems to follow those countries that grant copyright to the person who made the AI’s operation possible, with the UK’s model looking like the most efficient. This will ensure companies keep investing in the technology, safe in the knowledge they will reap the benefits. What happens when we start seriously debating whether computers should be given the status and rights of people is a whole other story.
The team that developed a ‘new’ Rembrandt produced a video about the process,
Mark Brown’s April 5, 2016 article abut this project (which was unveiled on April 5, 2017 in Amsterdam, Netherlands) for the Guardian newspaper provides more detail such as this,
It [Next Rembrandt project] is the result of an 18-month project which asks whether new technology and data can bring back to life one of the greatest, most innovative painters of all time.
Advertising executive [Bas] Korsten, whose brainchild the project was, admitted that there were many doubters. “The idea was greeted with a lot of disbelief and scepticism,” he said. “Also coming up with the idea is one thing, bringing it to life is another.”
The project has involved data scientists, developers, engineers and art historians from organisations including Microsoft, Delft University of Technology, the Mauritshuis in The Hague and the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam.
The final 3D printed painting consists of more than 148 million pixels and is based on 168,263 Rembrandt painting fragments.
Some of the challenges have been in designing a software system that could understand Rembrandt based on his use of geometry, composition and painting materials. A facial recognition algorithm was then used to identify and classify the most typical geometric patterns used to paint human features.
It sounds like it was a fascinating project but I don’t believe ‘The Next Rembrandt’ is an example of AI creativity or an example of the ‘creative spark’ Guadamuz discusses. This seems more like the kind of work that could be done by a talented forger or fraudster. As I understand it, even when a human creates this type of artwork (a newly discovered and unknown xxx masterpiece), the piece is not considered a creative work in its own right. Some pieces are outright fraudulent and others which are described as “in the manner of xxx.”
Taking a somewhat different approach to mine, Timothy Geigner at Techdirt has also commented on the question of copyright and AI in relation to Guadamuz’s essay in a July 7, 2017 posting,
Unlike with earlier computer-generated works of art, machine learning software generates truly creative works without human input or intervention. AI is not just a tool. While humans program the algorithms, the decision making – the creative spark – comes almost entirely from the machine.
Let’s get the easy part out of the way: the culminating sentence in the quote above is not true. The creative spark is not the artistic output. Rather, the creative spark has always been known as the need to create in the first place. This isn’t a trivial quibble, either, as it factors into the simple but important reasoning for why AI and machines should certainly not receive copyright rights on their output.
That reasoning is the purpose of copyright law itself. Far too many see copyright as a reward system for those that create art rather than what it actually was meant to be: a boon to an artist to compensate for that artist to create more art for the benefit of the public as a whole. Artificial intelligence, however far progressed, desires only what it is programmed to desire. In whatever hierarchy of needs an AI might have, profit via copyright would factor either laughably low or not at all into its future actions. Future actions of the artist, conversely, are the only item on the agenda for copyright’s purpose. If receiving a copyright wouldn’t spur AI to create more art beneficial to the public, then copyright ought not to be granted.
…
Geigner goes on (July 7, 2017 posting) to elucidate other issues with the ideas expressed in the general debates of AI and ‘rights’ and the EU’s solution.
New York’s recent comics convention (New York ComiCon, Oct. 10 -13, 2013) featured not only a Twitter hijack of its attendees accounts as described in an Oct. 11, 2013 posting on Techdirt by Timothy Geigner but also a presentation by will.i.am (of the Black Eyed Peas band) about a comic book project, Wizards & Robots, according to David Bruggeman’s Oct. 15, 2013 posting on his Pasco Phronesis blog (Note: Links have been removed),
At this year’s New York Comic Con, Black Eyed Peas musician will.i.am appeared with Brian David Johnson, a futurist who works with (among others) Intel. They were at the Comic Con to promote their upcoming comic book, Wizards and Robots (H/T STEMDaily). will sees the project as a means of getting more young people interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects. STEM is an interest of will’s, brought about by concerns over the future of the kids he works with in some of his charitable efforts:
“Will had been working with inner city kids for his charity i.am.angel, encouraging them to study math and sciences, and was concerned that technological intelligence was outpacing human’s ability to control it. [emphasis mine]
Here’s more about the Wizards & Robots project from an Oct. 10, 2013 posting by Scott Fraser, written in an anticipation of will.i.am’s and his partner’s New York ComiCon Oct. 11, 2013 presentation, for geekexchange,
Joining the long list of crossover media superstars will be will.i.am, who has co-written a new comic from IDW called Wizards & Robots. Joined by co-writer and futurist Brian David Johnson with art by Adam Archer, Wizards & Robots weaves an interesting tale that pits the future of technology against the forgotten magics of the past.
… Brian David Johnson is the resident Intel futurist, who ‘future casts’ a scientific vision of where humanity is moving towards. He has 25 patents, a great selection of TED talks, is a part of The Tomorrow Project, a passionate geek and the perfect co-writer to have on a comic series like Wizards & Robots.
When an army of futuristic robots journeys through time and space in search of ancient, powerful wizards, the fate of the world will hang in the balance, and a wealth of volatile secrets will be uncovered!
According to Fraser, the science and technology in this comic book is based in the real world. Certainly, at least one of the concerns ” … technological intelligence was outpacing human’s ability to control it .. ” reflects other real world observers’, including Martin Rees and some of his colleagues at Cambridge University, concerns with intelligence and machines. From my Nov. 25,2012 posting,
The idea that robots of one kind or another (e.g. nanobots eating up the world and leaving grey goo, Cylons in both versions of Battlestar Galactica trying to exterminate humans, etc.) will take over the world and find humans unnecessary isn’t especially new in works of fiction. It’s not always mentioned directly but the underlying anxiety often has to do with intelligence and concerns over an ‘explosion of intelligence’. The question it raises,’ what if our machines/creations become more intelligent than humans?’ has been described as existential risk. According to a Nov. 25, 2012 article by Sylvia Hui for Huffington Post, a group of eminent philosophers and scientists at the University of Cambridge are proposing to found a Centre for the Study of Existential Risk,
Could computers become cleverer than humans and take over the world? Or is that just the stuff of science fiction?
Philosophers and scientists at Britain’s Cambridge University think the question deserves serious study. A proposed Center for the Study of Existential Risk will bring together experts to consider the ways in which super intelligent technology, including artificial intelligence, could “threaten our own existence,” the institution said Sunday.
“In the case of artificial intelligence, it seems a reasonable prediction that some time in this or the next century intelligence will escape from the constraints of biology,” Cambridge philosophy professor Huw Price said.
When that happens, “we’re no longer the smartest things around,” he said, and will risk being at the mercy of “machines that are not malicious, but machines whose interests don’t include us.”
It’s fascinating to me that individuals with such vastly different interests are attempting to engage others in a discussion about our co-existence with increasingly intelligent machines’ by means of an academic center for serious discussion (Center for the Study of Existential Risk) or a comic book/graphic novel (Wizards & Robots).
Getting back to the comic book, here’s what some of the artwork looks like,
The artwork reminds me of Edward Gorey‘s work (especially the human character) or perhaps Tim Burton. I understand ‘Wizards & Robots’ is supposed to be available some time in March 2014.