Over a hundred years before the “computer age,” a young woman wrote what would later become recognized as a computer algorithm or computer program. Lovelace recognized the potential of having devices that were designed to do math also synthesize art. What kinds of art do you view on your devices or create on your devices?
It’s hard for me to imagine the mind of someone who was so prescient when it came to the coming of electronic computers. Intelligence can be thought of properly observing circumstances and situations and projecting multiple outcomes, whereas Lovelace went so far beyond projection into actual application of these insights. That level of understanding is beyond remarkable. But then to see that she believed that these future machines would do more than mathematics and impact the arts is so far beyond simple genius. This reminds me of Leonardo Divinci’s genius, seeing and understanding very deep things and then applying them in ways that no one else had thought of or would think about for decades.
As far as consuming “art,” everything I do is via some device, continually…. Usually I’m using YouTube or FaceBook videos. I have access to e-books or graphic novels, but I tend to do my “reading” via audio books, so that I can “read” while doing something menial like housework or driving. As far as art creation (other than writing) I have access to amazing digital tools, but I’m still kind’a stuck in the 1970s and stick mostly to my analog guitar for music or pad and paper when it comes to drawing. Period. It’s kind’a embarrassing that I haven’t taken the time to explore these tools. I’ve been editing images and videos using digital tools for decades, but nothing with its own “intelligence,” and definitely haven’t used anything digital with my music… except there was one time when I was working at Full Sail Labs (summer tech camp facilitator) and created a song on GarageBand using loops. I played it for one of my guitar playing friends and he automatically hated it, until he found out that I “created” it…
I would like to explore more with realtime layering, but that might require that I be a bit better of a musician/guitar player… [sigh]
The intersection between digital tools and creativity will always be interesting territory with purists and experimenters clamoring over the interference of these tools versus the value of raw human talent. But this is a battle that’s been going on for a very long time, most notably going back to when some thought that photography was going to eliminate portrait painters over a hundred years ago. In the more recent debate it used to said that all the digital technology in the world won’t make your writing any good if you just suck as a writer. But now with tools like ChatGPT are giving A.I. the means to do its own “content creation” maybe it will fall to profession human writers to point out when the A.I. prose sucks or is beautifully produced lies. I have my doubts whether Ada Lovelace imagined that the use of digital technologies in the creation of works of art would be this contentious. Or not.
What do you think Ms. Lovelace imagined and how do you participate in this computer/human art consumption/creation?
Source: Ada Lovelace: Great Minds, SciShow, https://youtu.be/uBbVbqRvqTM
