Can a computer be creative? This question has been asked since the invention of the machine and each breakthrough in the technology increases the speculation. But can a computer match, or even succeed, the creativity of a human?

In Marcus du Sautoy’s recent book The Creativity Code he asks, can computers be creative in today’s age of machine learning? and then goes onto discuss “the Lovelace test”: a machine must produce something “new, surprising and valuable”, and do so in such a way that its programmers are unable to explain the feat. Although a computer may pass the test and generate a piece of work that maybe considered art, what is missing in the discussion is the interpretation of the work by a human, or as summarised by E. A. Buccchianeri, “Art is in the eye of the beholder, and everyone has their own interpretation”.

There is a long history of computer generated art. Starting in the 1950s computers were used to generate visual art which has continued up to the present time but they tend to be used by artists as a digital paint brush. With the increasing development of Artificial Intelligence, where there is no influence of the programmer, computers have been left to generate art visual art. There is a similar story for computers creating music music, and recently poetry.

All of the development in computer creativity opens up interesting questions about whether a computer is simulating the creative process or it is genuinely creating something new and novel. For example when a computer writes poetry it will use algorithms to start with one line and then starts to generate additional lines that rhyme according to traditional poetic structures, say a sonnet. To allow the computer to use figurative language, the algorithm uses mathematics to create metaphors and similes. The following is an example of a computer generated poem

but when compared with say the House of Reflections by Olive Cooper, 12 years ( from On Common Ground by Jill Pirrie ):

there is a clear difference. For example Olive’s poem has a subject and it is full of evocative images that bring the poem to life in the mind of the reader, or at least it did for me. Although there are some interesting images in the computer generated poem, it lacks any form of coherence. I am assuming it is about death, but it could be about death in a battle or maybe something else! Also, there is no title in the computer generated poem which can be an important part of the poem and signals to the reader what it is about.

Computer technology is always improving therefore it is interesting to speculate how far a it could be developed so that it can write a poem as good as a human. Imagine asking Amazon’s Alexa, or any other similar device, to “write a poem about chocolate chip cookies!” Alexa’s poetry writing capabilities would have to include information about a chocolate chip cookie: the components of a cookie, how it is made, its smell, taste, what it feels like to hold it, the sensations when it is eaten and so on. Alexa would need information about the history of the cookie, the social context of the cookie, for example when and where it is eaten, conversations it may overhear, where it was being eaten, and any other information that an imagination could generate. All of this information could be stored in a computer and would be the source of lines and words for the poem. Once a palette of information had been gathered then the next stage would be to use the many techniques that a poet employs to generate a poem: metaphors, similes, different types of rhythm and rhyme, the social importance of certain words, a personal history of eating cookies etc. This is something that Alexa using Artificial Intelligence could probably do. Finally Alexa would have to produce a poem that could not have been influenced by the programmer, in other words write it itself, in a way that connects with a reader in an emotional way - a very tall order! But as the list of capabilities show Alexa would be simulating the process of writing poetry and therefore it would not guarantee that the poem it wrote would be profound.

The highest accolade that a poet can receive is to win the Noble Prize for Literature which is a recognition of the impact that their poetry has had on society and beyond. Many of the citations set the standard that computer generated poetry would have to reach, for example the citation for Seamus Heaney is: “for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past.” For a computer generated poetry to reach these levels it would have to have the skill, imagination, subtleties in word use, personal history, and an ability to make a particular subject into something that is universal, which is something that the great poets exhibit in their poetry. But finally, it would be judged by a human and it would seem impossible that a computer would ever be able to write a good poem because it would not be able to experience the life of humans.

Computer technology continues to develop and will break into new areas of our lives, and possibly open up new forms of creativity, but as discussed above, it will never be creative when compared to a human.

The Apollo 11 moon landing remains one of the greatest achievements in human endeavour and demonstrated what can be achieved through the combination of technology and people. But are there there any lessons for today’s emerging technology that can be taken from a decades old project?

I remember watching the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969 on a black and white television and picking up on the excitement of the announcers reporting on every stage of the moon landing. Even today the whistle-beep sound punctuating communication between the astronauts and Huston brings back memories. Since then I have always been fascinated by the technology that carried three people: Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, in something that seemed no bigger than a large skip over 235,000 miles, land them on the moon and then bring them safely back.

Winding the clock forward to today and we are abounding in new technology that is breaking into all areas of life from the production of food to medicine and transportation. But one - Artificial Intelligence - has caught the publics attention. Articles fill the media and bounce around social media with journalists and bloggers linking the eventual demise of human life from Artificial Intelligence with their imagination heightened by films such as The Matrix, The Terminator and epitomised by the sinister computer HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Artificial Intelligence is a technology that has been developing since the mid 1940s. It started with the development of a mathematical model for a neuron: the basic unit of a human brain. Its development has accelerated in the last ten years by the increase in computing power for lower cost, and the capability of gathering what feels like the near infinite amount of data. Artificial Intelligence uses the mathematical model of a neuron in a simplistic way to simulate a neuron in the brain and when connected together in a network it is used to “learn” by analysing data. For example, being able to distinguish between the pictures of cats and dogs by learning what a cat looks like compared to a dog. But Artificial Intelligence can neither explain nor understand what makes the difference which are some of the key characteristics of being human. Also, the largest number of neurons used in the current applications of Artificial Intelligence are in the millions whereas the best estimate for the neurons in a human brain is 100 billion or 100,000,000,000. Even if a computer could handle the same number of neurons as a human brain then how they connect to each other to create the wide range of human characteristics would probably remain a mystery for a very long time. However, there are a number of applications of Artificial Intelligence that are in everyday use. For example, communicating with people, in systems such as Siri and Alexa and guiding our purchase of goods and services with, Amazon and Netflix. The technology will continue to develop and become a greater part of our lives.

Behind the Apollo 11 moon landing there were thousands and thousands of people involved who covered a wide range of skills. But there was one area that fascinated me most which was the design of the software that kept the space craft on its flight path and safely landed the astronauts on the moon. But even using state of the art software there were two potentially serious events that could have ended the mission in tragedy. The first event was the computer overloaded with extraneous data just as they were about to land and the mission could have been aborted. The ground controllers and Neil Armstrong knew that by restarting the computer it would would keep the essential programs running for the landing and the mission continued. However, a second problem started to loom. Neil Armstrong’s attention was drawn by the appearance of a rocky crater that the guidance system was taking them too. It was to late to retarget the computer for a different trajectory. Instead, he took over the landing from the computer and manoeuvred across the crater and landed at Tranquility Base.

What can be learned form the moon landing? Without the intervention of the astronauts the mission would either aborted or ended in tragedy. Without the technology the astronauts would not have reached the moon. One depended on the other. Therefore it is important to keep people at the centre of technology and that they fully understand its limits. Artificial Intelligence will bring many benefits but only if it enhances people’s capabilities rather than replace them!

Although I can’t draw without the aid of a ruler and the limits of my painting skills are decorating, I have always found the paintings produced by an artist fascinating. It was this fascination that took me down to David Hockney’s The Bigger Picture exhibition in the Royal Academy a few years ago.

Jostling for position around the paintings, the words of the American author Jerzy Kosinski were rolling around in my mind “The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke.” Eventually I found enough space to take in a large picture of a woodland scene. Questions started to build up: was there a wind pushing the leaves to point along the path? why the choice of colours which felt like a Walt Disney production? What was the artist trying to evoke?

Out of the corner of my eye a tall figure with bushy grey hair, and long sideburns, caught my attention as he leaned closer to the painting. His thick fingers lifted up his glasses and propped them onto his forehead, and slowly took in the picture. Then spoke in a low voice, ‘Why .. why .. why?’ Pulling himself straight he slowly pulled his glasses down and looked up and with one final ‘why?’ I froze. Up to that point in time I had been absorbed in the painting trying to work out my own interpretation. Now my thoughts were being being interrupted by a stranger. I turned to see a man in a crisp light blue jacket and an open necked which gave him an air of authority. He turned his rugged face to me and his blue eyes seemed to widen as if to reinforce the question. But before I could try and find a reply he went on, ‘Why is there so much of it? It is far to big and overblown?’ he paused, then nodding his head, continued, ‘It is it so crude’. He then turned back to me. I scrambled for a few thoughts, after all this is David Hockney one of the greatest living artists, he must have been trying to say something. I started to reply, ‘I don’t know but there is something I like about it.’ He turned back to the picture and waving his right hand as though he was painting each line rattled off: ‘Picaso, Brueghel, or a Van Gogh, Picasso, Fauve or even a Frederick Gove may have influenced him, but he has failed!’ Some of the artists I had heard of, some I hadn’t. Then shaking his head again, ‘He was such a talented draughtsman …each touch of the brush capturing something about his subjects. Shrugging his shoulders, ‘Where has it gone, its as if the technology that he dabbles with has robbed him of his skills.’ At last I found a few words, ‘But isn’t he trying to tell us something about the countryside?’ I felt that this was a weak reply, and quickly followed on ‘Isn’t he trying to look at it differently?’ There I thought, I had replied, and hoping that the discussion was closed. But he came back, ‘In what way?’ After large parts of my life living in the countryside, I felt that I could reply with some confidence, ‘Look it is not a picture of the countryside, but for me’, stressing the me, ‘the exaggeration of colour and textures is making me think about looking more closely at woods, what am I really seeing?’ He turned and looked at me square on then turned his head to look at the picture then turned back to face me. By then people were starting to gather around us straining to find what was going on. ‘Money’ the man grunted - he stood back and looked around and in a tone that felt he had drawn a conclusion ‘money!’’, what we have paid to see this is propping up RA so that it can keep rolling out this sort of rubbish! He them turned and pointed to somewhere outside of the building, ‘It would be better up for sale on those railings across the way.’

Coming through from the next gallery I saw a security guard moving towards us. I turned back to the stranger and he gone! I never saw him again.

Later that day, on the train back to Crewe, I couldn’t get the stranger out of my mind. Who was he? Why did David Hockney’s work evoke such a reaction in him. I still liked the picture, but I couldn’t put my finger on why, and maybe that is what art does - no easy answers. I’ll never get a chance to ask David Hockney what he was trying to express or what feelings he was tying to evoke. But I continue to look more intensely at the composition of trees and plants when I walk through the local woods and maybe that is what is meant by the bigger picture.

Jokes and philosophy are an odd combination. Philosophy is mainly academic in flavour; full of terminology that locks most people out. Jokes make most people laugh. However Norman Malcolm wrote in Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir, that Wittgenstein remarked “that a serious and philosophical work could be written that would consist entirely of jokes ( without being facetious )”. Jokes? Philosophy? Further investigation is required.

Jokes come in many forms: puns, funny gestures, pranks, irony, sarcasm, nonsense etc. Anything that in general makes us laughs. Comedians, of whom there are many fine examples, deliver jokes. Not a stand-up philosopher. Apart from a comedian’s sense of timing in delivering a joke, they can use gestures. Watch any clip of Tommy Cooper and you’re laughing before he speaks! All skills that a philosopher lacks.

However, Wittgenstein is clear: jokes need to be written down and therefore they must make the reader laugh without the aid of speaking or gestures. Some jokes that are delivered by a comedian can be funny in writing, in particular one-liners, for example one from Tim Vine “Crime in multi-storey car parks. That is wrong on so many different levels.” Wittgenstein also stresses that the jokes have not to be facetious. No “why did the chicken cross the road ?” type jokes. Also, he was not considering jokes about philosophers but rather about philosophical problems.

So what was Wittgenstein on about? It is difficult to image Wittgenstein laughing at a joke. He was mostly in a state of tension with periodic bouts of suicidal thoughts. Although there are some remarks in Wittgenstein’s work about humour and jokes, they are never developed enough to gain any insight.

Early in his life Wittgenstein read the philosophical works of Schopenhauer which may have influenced his ideas on the connection between jokes and philosophy. Schopenhauer’s view was that a joke lies in an object that can, at a stretch, be classified under a concept, even though it differs greatly from the objects usually classification. We laugh involuntarily when we grasp the inconsistency: when we see the object doesn’t really fit the concept after all. Sounds complicated but an example may illustrate what he is getting at. Amongst the many Spike Milligan jokes that makes me laugh is: “A man loses his dog, so he puts an ad in the paper. And the ad says, ‘Here, boy!’” The phrase ‘Here boy’ said within the context of a man walking his dog in a park we immediately understand without any problems or confusion, if not irritated when we are trying to soak up the sun. However when we move the context by placing the phrase in a newspaper we laugh at the inconsistency.

Wittgenstein’s view was that problems in philosophy arise when there is a failure to recognise that the words being used have lost their sense. When we come across a misuse of words, when they have lost their meaning, they could create an inconsistency. And rather than spending lots of time puzzling over the meaning of the sentence we should grasp it for what it is: nonsense, laugh, and move on.

So how would it work? My attempt is based on solipsism, the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist, and goes ‘A man thought he was the only person in the world, until he looked in the mirror’. Would Wittgenstein have laughed? Maybe not but I would hope for a wry smile.

Big thanks to David Quantick who through a series of emails answered my questions about jokes

My interest in Wittgenstein was developed further through television. There were a few programmes about his life and work which were aimed at a broad audience and I found them very absorbing. The following is a collection of those programmes that can now be found on the web.

In Christopher Sykes’ BBC Horizon documentary Wittgenstein is brought to life through anecdotes from people that knew him, his letters to friends and commentaries on his work:

A series of programmes that I always looked forward to was the BBC’s The Great Philosophers with Brian Magee. The series covered the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, and Descartes, among others, and ended with a discussion with John Searle on the philosophy of Wittgenstein. In their discussion they cover Wittgenstein’s legacy; ranging from his early work, the Tractatus, to his posthumously published, Philosophical Investigations. Although the thought of two philosophers in deep discussion about Wittgenstein may feel daunting Brian Magee keeps the discussion at a level that is very accessible to the the non-academic:

The quality of the writing in the Tractatus and the Philosophical Investigations were mentioned in the discussion and the following sections show the difference in approach and style between the two works. First a section from the Tractatus that discusses language and the nature of philosophy:

The following section is from the Philosophical Investigation and discusses again language and the nature of philosophy:

It would have been fascinating, although daunting, to have attended one of Wittgenstein’s lectures at Cambridge University. His rooms were in Trinity College and they had a large view of the sky and also of Cambridge roofs. They were were sparsely furnished and extremely clean with a deck chair, or two, and virtually nothing else. His lectures were given without preparation and without notes. He would openly struggle with his own thoughts about a philosophical problem and passionately question his own thinking as well as those of the students. The closest example of what it would have been like experiencing one of his lectures is from Derek Jarmin’s film Wittgenstein:

Although Wittgenstein never committed to any formal religion he had a lifelong interest in religion and claimed: “I am not a religious man but I cannot help seeing every problem from a religious point of view.” In television series Sea of Faith Don Cupitt gives a different aspect on Wittgenstein’s life and work. The clip starts with a short introduction about previous religious thinkers: