Artists feed themselves at all times with technological innovations; sometimes these are determinant and disrupt art. Especially when they come at the right time, like the apparently modest development in 1841, by the American painter John Goffe Rand, of the soft metal tube of paint, collapsible, hermetically closed with a clamp, which will enable artists to paint outside, leading thirty years later to the first impressionist exhibition.

Today, everybody talks, undiscerningly, about artificial intelligence. Without understanding anything about it, some see in it an absolute intelligence, able to free men from boring tasks and even to create works of art; others see in it a monstrous intelligence, which will distrust men and which, as soon as it can, will get rid of them.

Hence the urge, say some of them, to master it before it destroys us. And for others, at least, to decrypt what would be an “artistic intelligence”. And to use it to enhance the creative process.

AI already knows how to learn by experience, recognize faces, drive a car, play Go better than men, write a press review or compose a simple melody. Some people are using AI to predict the nature of works of art that the market would want to acquire, or to protect intellectual property by the interplay of AI and blockchain. Some also approach the reality and the complexity of artistic intelligence by the use of virtual reality in order to put ourselves in other person’s shoes, to see the world differently or to wander in the brain’s labyrinth.

But we are very far from seeing AI master what constitutes the basis of human artistic intelligence. For example, whereas a five-year-old child recognizes what is a dog once he saw one, thousands of attempts are needed for a device to learn how to recognize such an animal. And a lot more will be needed for AI to possibly be able to create original pieces of art.

Let’s check the facts: there is in our cortex about one hundred billion of neurons, all connected, and each of them connected by thousands of synapses; which makes billions and billions of connections. Excluding those which are elsewhere in our body. The main part of intelligence plays out in the mutual relations between the neurons and synapses. It is not in the ability to organize causalities, but to anticipate, by retroactive loops, later perceptions: a tennis player can’t send the ball back after a serve if he only trusts what he sees, a slalom skier doesn’t pass the gates if he doesn’t anticipate the movements of his body.This anticipation is peculiar to the human creative intelligence. For example, it is an essential part of aesthetic feelings, as Francis Wolff demonstrates so well about music in his book “Why Music ?” (Fayard éd.).

Therefore, we are very far from seeing AI taking part in the creative process. By chance, by random and serendipity, pieces of art may appear for the inform matter. But to link that with an artistic conscience and process, more is to be found.

In the long run, AI may lead us to new avenues of creation, new continents of creativity, new dimensions of human means.

Can Artificial intelligence become a help to artistic intelligence?

How far can it take us?

Music has always been more than music. Not only it is what we all know and share: the ultimate expression of the specificity of mankind, its main differences with other animals (including those who sing); but it has always been, for those who can read those signs, the main way to predict some fundamental dimensions of the future.In fact, since the beginning of times, musical changes (in technological, sociological and economic patterns), anticipate the other changes in society as a whole.

For a very simple and profound reason: music explores the kingdom of signs. And it is easier, quicker, less painful and less expensive to manipulate signs than to manipulate material things. In theoretical language, we would say that information is infinite, while energy is limited. Matter is energy. Music is sign. And music explores the kingdom of possible much quicker than material fields. Even if, and it is essential, music needs matter (instrument or voice) in order to be heard by human ears.

(We could say the same about finance, also based on the language of signs; and there are fascinating analogies between the evolutions and historical roles of music and finance).

Many examples can be given of this capacity of music to anticipate the other dimensions of reality: non-religious concerts appear at the end of the 15th century, before the weakening of the power of churches. Tickets and concert halls are, in the middle of the 17th century, the pioneer of market economy. Symphonic orchestras are, in the middle of the 18th century, early signs of division of labor. The conductor is, at the beginning of the 19th century an early metaphor of the modern economic and political leader. In the middle of the 19th century, in France, with the creation of the SACEM, the dispute about music copyright opens the first fight about intellectual property; later, at the end of the 19th century, gramophones and records were the first examples of mass production, much before cars or washing machines. Discussion about allowing the broadcasting of music, around 1920, anticipates the acute recent discussion about free music on the Internet. Around 1930, the creation of hit parades open the road of ranking products by the number of their sales and not their specific qualities. Music was also the first product, before the end of the 20th century, to be delivered peer to peer, well in advance of Uber or of any other example of collaborative economy.

I could give a thousand of other examples from the surge of some ideology, to the balance of powers, and evolution of capitalism, through the evolution of opera or the birth of new music instruments. For example, the surge of atonal music was a gloomy prophecy of what the catastrophic 20th century was going to produce.

The domination of Africa on the rest of the world: Chinese music is not and never will be universal. This is a fact: no one listens to Chinese music abroad: its structure is too specific. And China has never tried to become an imperialistic nation beyond a narrow sphere of influence. The only universal music now, both as melodies and rhythms, is coming from Africa. And it is obvious that, for the best or the worse, Africa is going to be the main scene of mankind’s future: in 30 years, the population of this continent will have doubled!The development of live music is a sign that the only thing people are ready to pay for is to share an experience with artists and have good time. Time is the only scarce thing and everything will be made to free more time, by devices such as autonomous car.

More and more, people want to make music (play and compose), and not only to listen to it: it makes it easy to predict that people will want more and more to have control over their own life. DJs announce a world where the difference between consuming and producing will disappear. Where everyone will produce its consumption using 4D printing. Music is and will be everywhere, as a sign of fear of loneliness, need of reassurance and political mastering.

In this world of global music, as well as global society, things can go to the worst. If no one can make the difference between good musicians and nice amateurs anymore, the difference between good and bad will disappear. The quality of human condition is at stake. If we don’t raise the criteria of excellence, the worst will happen. If we raise it, then we can reach a noble world, of elegance, refinement, sophistication, creation, accomplishment and culture. For all.

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Jacques Attali

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