Machinic Thinking and Subjectivity

This is prompted by Ron’s remarks on the first AI blog…or blog on AI…

Is it the case that the apparent ‘advantage’ of AI over human persons, that it can achieve an ‘objectivity’ or ‘neutrality’ (the latter is the preferred classification of capital), its Achilles heel? AI feeds on what already exists, it necessarily remains within parameters that are defined by its programming (much as a chess machine or a calculator does). Its supposed conclusions or solutions are, therefore, based on a set of (implicit) rules which it lacks the capacity to challenge, to transcend.

The human person (some human persons), on the other hand, reaches a stage whereby their subjectivity – a result of their unique physical and psychological experiences and the ways in which they “put these together” – causes them to question and challenge how things are. The human person develops a conscience, a consciousness, a capacity for moral thinking that goes beyond what exists. They transcend the boundaries of conventional thought to develop unique perspectives on the world, and events in that world, formulating ideas of justice and fairness. In particular, they are able to recognise that a “rational decision” can be the wrong one because of the ramifications for others. AI, similarly to “business thinking” (ok, that’s a questionable conjunction), does not do this; I say “does not do this” rather than “cannot do this” to retain the idea that AI is programmed by someone rather than fall into technological determinism – that because X was ‘invented’ at time Y, then it inevitably developed into Z at a later time, A.

Our subjectivity is what motivates our actions as human persons, whether that subjectivity is guided by a desire for profit or a desire for justice. Of course, our subjectivity is formed by a variety of factors: our culture; our upbringing; our education; our ability to think. Given that our subjectivity is constantly changing – each present physical and psychological event modifies and alters each past physical and psychological event and each future physical and psychological event – that demand for consistency, for ‘sameness’, in decision-making becomes redundant…in fact, it becomes unreasonable. The demand for consistency can be identified for what it is: the imposition of an epistemological framework that is based on power relations. This reveals the attraction of AI: that claim of neutrality, an absence of engagement with the subjective. However, at one and same time, this is indicative of AI’s inability to engage in human reasoning. Without what we can call the “emotive element”, isn’t ‘reasoning’ mere logic?

When one reads a novel or watches a film, we are aware of the logic of, say, the central character’s actions but part of the fascination of these Art forms is working out the emotional reasoning which explains why they do what they do. Often we think “Well, given this set of circumstances, I would not have done that”, seeing the character’s actions as illogical, but retaining an understanding of their emotional reasoning. What we are also able to ‘compute’ is how human persons react in remarkably different ways to identical circumstances.

To pin this down: our subjectivity is what makes us human persons – our ability to learn from experiences we have had (both physically and emotionally) and to extrapolate from experiences encountered in, say, fictional situations, which enables us to act in the world as if we had really had this experience, simultaneously “reality testing” our physical and emotional behaviours, modifying these where we deem it appropriate. When we experience Art, it is first and foremost, an emotional encounter, based on ‘like’ and ‘good’, whether that encounter is as spectator or as creator: the feel of the pen in my hand; the way the light falls on the objects of my photograph; the way the clay feels to my fingertips. These feelings go beyond the conscious, or a logic, to the human. This is not, however, to mobilise yet another version of ‘inspiration’, the “blinding flash” which causes the work to spring from the imagination. It is more docile, more ordinary, in that it is not some kind of exclusive, elite quality that only “the few” feel. It occurs when I fold a towel, place another log on a fire or cook food. Ok, it may (and only ‘may’) be a lesser feeling that when I manage to frame a particular shot or draw the pattern of sunlight on a hillside, but it is similar and connected. When I perform these actions is part of my motivation that others will share my concepts of ‘like’ and ‘good’? Is this different to the thousand ways that this occurs in domestic life each day? Can we talk about ‘motivation’ at all? I create X which can then go on to be recognised by others as ‘Art’ or not, an entirely arbitrary recognition based on narrowly-defined categories…BUT for the past hundred or so years, these narrowly-defined categories have been challenged, hence, the on-going debates around high and low culture, the concept of popular culture, working-class culture, the end of culture.

Does Art, as Dickie argues, depend on where and when it is displayed? This gives too much power to the established “Art World”, a clique who ‘decide’ on the classification and worth of something displayed in the “right places”.

How does MT/AI decide on Art? Can an algorithm be written that both classifies and feels? I read this morning of the world’s first AI Art exhibition. What does that sentence mean? When I looked at some of the exhibits, all they were were (stretching a point) ‘pretty’, a juxtaposition of objects. It did not seem to me that there was anything to be gained from looking, no insight or emotion, merely a pale imitation of Dali, Ernst and Duchamp. Thus, AI once again, as it does with ideas, recycles. It simply responds and reflects rather than refracts. The social dynamic that exists between the artist and the world is, in the case of MT/AI, flat – a monotone without meaning, although even that description credits these works with a conceptual meaning that they do not possess on their own. The question becomes: Do these works have artistic potentiality? Do they mean beyond themselves?