Abstract
This paper presents an emerging aspect of intentionality through recent Artificial Intelligence (AI) developments in art and design. Our main thesis is that, if we focus just on the outcome of the artistic process, the intentionality of the artist does not have any relevance. Intention is measured as a result of actions regardless of whether they are human-based or not as long as there is an esthetical value intersubjectively acknowledged. In other words, what matters is the ‘intentio’ embedded in the work of art (the output) rather than the ‘intendere’ (the process). By considering the former aspect, intentionality becomes free of human intervention, therefore 'unintentional'. This thesis is supported through a range of examples related to AI in general and AI art in particular. However, in the case of a self-driving vehicle, the macro-goal of the system is fixed by humans, even though the AI system itself will take care of decomposing the macro-goal into a set of micro-goals and take the corresponding decisions. In the case of art, the system does not need to have any exterior goal to the extent that art is pure freedom of expression, as many philosophers have acknowledged. In this sense, the decisions of any AI system generating art or design are independent of humans and must be judged only on the ground of the final outcome. A work of art will be judged ‘artistic’ to the extent that humans will recognize an artistic intent in the work itself. In particular, the introduction of random processes makes an AI-generated artwork fully independent of human creativity.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
This remark does not mean to exclude that the paper itself is a technic consisting of a number of mechanical or chemical processes for transforming cellulose fibers into what we call today ‘paper’.
References
Austin JL (1966) Three ways of spilling ink. Philos Rev 75(4):427–440. https://doi.org/10.2307/2183222
Bainbridge L (1983) Ironies of automation. Automatica. https://doi.org/10.1016/0005-1098(83)90046-8
Boden M (1996) Dimensions of creativity. MIT Press, Cambridge (MA)
Boden M (2004) The creative mind. Myths and mechanisms. Routledge, London
Boden M (2019) From fingers to digits: an artificial aesthetic. MIT Press, Cambridge
Bosilkovski I (2020) Stanford grad who created the world’s first ‘robot lawyer’ raises $12 million in series A. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/igorbosilkovski/2020/06/23/stanford-grad-who-created-the-worlds-first-robot-lawyer-raises-12-million-in-series-a/. Accessed 10 Dec 2021
Bradham BT (2020) Goodbye to bartenders: robots could soon make your drink. Bloomberg Quint. https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/goodbye-to-bartenders-robots-could-soon-make-your-drink. Accessed 10 Dec 2021
Chaslot G (2019) The toxic potential of youtube’s feedback loop. Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/the-toxic-potential-of-youtubes-feedback-loop/. Accessed 10 Dec 2021
Chu, C, Zhmoginov A, Sandler, M (2017). CycleGAN, a master of steganography. https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.02950. Accessed 10 Dec 2021
De Lancey S (1996) R. M. W. Dixon, ergativity. (Cambridge studies in linguistics 69). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Dewey J (1932) With James Tufts. In: Boydston JA (ed) The collected works of John Dewey. Southern Illinois University Press, Carbonsdale (IL), pp 1882–1953
Elish MC (2016) Moral Crumple Zones: Cautionary Tales in Human-Robot Interaction. Engag Sci Technol Soc. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2757236.Accessed10December2021
Escobar A (2018) Designs for the pluriverse. Radical interdependence, autonomy, and the making of worlds. Duke University Press, Durham
Fazi MB (2019) Can a machine think (anything new) ? Automation beyond simulation. AI Soc 5:5. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-018-0821-0
Floridi L (2016) Faultless responsibility: on the nature and allocation of moral responsibility for distributed moral actions. Philos Trans R Soc. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2016.0112
Floridi, L, Cowls, J (2019) A unified framework of five principles for AI in society. Harvard data science review. https://hdsr.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/l0jsh9d1/release/6. Accessed 10 Dec 2021
Gilpin L H, Bau D, Yuan, B Z, Bajwa A, Specter M, Kagal, L (2018) Explaining explanations: an overview of interpretability in machine learning. https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.00069. Accessed 10 Dec 2021
Hartnett K (2019) Foundations built for a general theory of neural networks. quanta magazine. https://www.quantamagazine.org/foundations- built-for-a-general-theory-of-neural-networks-20190131. Accessed 10 Dec 2021
Hayles K (2016) Cognitive assemblages: technical agency and human interactions. Crit Inq 42(1):32–55
Hughes J (2014) Computer graphics: principles and practice. Addison-Wesley, Upper Saddle River
Hume D (1987) Essays Moral, political. Liberty Fund, Indianapolis
Joshi A (2020) Doomsday scenario? AI taught itself to play video games and attained human-like skills. Shine. https://archive.shine.cn/opinion/Doomsday-scenario-AI-taught-itself-to-play-video-games-and-attained-humanlike-skills/shdaily.shtml. Accessed 20 Dec 2021
Kawaguchi K, Kaelbling L P, Bengio Y (2017) Generalization in deep learning. https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.05468. Accessed 10 Dec 2021
Klingemann M (2021) How AI is transforming the creative industries. The economist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgYpMYMhzXI. Accessed 10 Dec 2021
Kulikov L, Nikolaos L (2014) Introduction. Linguist. https://doi.org/10.1515/ling-2014-0010
Lacan J (1992) The ethics of psychoanalysis. The seminar of Jacques Lacan book VII. Routledge, London
Leitch VB (2018) The norton anthology of theory and criticism. W.W. Norton and Company, New York
Li S, Cheng H, Wang J (2014) Making a cultural cluster in china: a study of Dafen oil painting village. Shenzhen Habitat Int 41:156–164. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2013.07.004
Liddell H (2010) An intermediate Greek-English Lexicon: founded upon the seventh edition of Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon. Benediction Classics, Oxford
Lightman A (2013) The accidental universe: the world you thought you knew. Pantheon Books, New York
Lovadina M (2018) Digital painting in photoshop: industry techniques for beginners. 3dtotal Publishing, Worcester
Manovich L (2013) Software takes command: extending the language of new media. Bloomsbury Academic, New York
Manovich L (2019) Defining AI art: Three Proposals. AI and dialogue of cultures. Exhibition catalogue. Exhibition Catalogue, Saint-Petersburg
Mazzone M, Elgammal A (2019) Art, creativity, and the potential of artificial intelligence. Arts. https://doi.org/10.3390/arts8010026
Milner G (2016) Death by GPS: are satnavs changing our brains? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/25/gps-horror-stories-driving-satnav-greg-milner. Accessed 10 Dec 2021
Mittelstadt BD, Allo P, Taddeo M, Wachter S, Floridi L (2016) The ethics of algorithms: mapping the debate. Big Data Soc. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951716679679.Accessed10December2021
National Transportation Safety Board (2019) Collision between vehicle controlled by developmental automated driving system and pedestrian-Tempe, Arizona-March 18, 2018. Washington, DC. https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/HAR1903.pdf. Accessed 10 Dec 2021
Pariser E (2011) The filter bubble: how the new internet is changing what we read and how we think. Penguin Books, London
Porr L (2020) A robot wrote this entire article. are you scared yet, human? The guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/08/robot-wrote-this-article-gpt-3. Accessed 10 Dec 2021
Rumelhart DE, Hinton GE, Williams RJ (1986) Learning representations by back-propagating errors. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/323533a0
Ryle G (1949) The concept of mind. Hutchinson’s University Library, London
Santoni de Sio F, Van den Hoven J (2018) meaningful human control over autonomous systems: a philosophical account. Front Robot AI. https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2018.0001.Accessed10December2021
Sasso F (2011) Abduzeedo inspiration guide for designers. New Riders, Berkeley
Searle JR (1980) Minds, brains, and programs. Behav Brain Sci. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00005756
Serrano W (2018) Fintech model: the random neural network with genetic algorithm. Proced Comput Sci. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2018.07.288
Serriano P (2003) Form follows software. Acadia Proc 22:186–205
Shepherd I (2009) Brian Eno’s oblique strategies: the ultimate music production tool. https://productionadvice.co.uk/oblique-strategies/. Accessed 10 Dec 2021
Skitka LJ, Mosier KL, Burdick MD (2000) Accountability and automation bias. Int J Hum Comput Stud. https://doi.org/10.1006/ijhc.1999.0349
Sprenger F (2020) Microdecisions and autonomy in self-driving cars: virtual probabilities. AI Soc. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-020-01115-7
Stael Von Holstein J (2019) An original copy. Impress, London
Stiegler B (1994) Technics and time: the fault of epimetheus. Stanford University Press, Stanford
Strauch B (2018) Ironies of automation: Still unresolved after all these years. IEEE Trans Hum and Mach Syst. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8013079. Accessed 10 Dec 2021
Sugiyama S (2019) Human behavior and another kind in consciousness: emerging research and opportunities. Information Science Reference, Hershey
Taylor G (2014) When the machine made art: the troubled history of computer art. Bloomsbury, New York
Turing A (2004) The essential turing : seminal writings in computing, logic, philosophy, artificial intelligence, and artificial life, plus the secrets of enigma. Clarendon Press, Oxford
Vandome N (2020) Photoshop elements tips, tricks and shortcuts: in easy steps : for windows and mac 2020 edition. In Easy Steps Limited, Warwickshire
Vincent J (2018) How three French students used borrowed code to put the first AI portrait in Christie’s. The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/23/18013190/ai-art-portrait-auction-christies-belamy-obvious-robbie-barrat-gans. Accessed 10 Dec 2021
Wagemans J (2002) Detection of visual symmetries. In: Tyler CW (ed) Human symmetry perception and its computational analysis. Lawrence Erlbaum, London, pp 25–48
Wakerly J (2006) Digital design: principles and practices. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River
Xiao X, Yan M, Sunitha B, Ji C, Pan Y (2020) Efficient hyperparameter optimization in deep learning using a variable length genetic algorithm. https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.12703. Accessed 10 Dec 2021
Zhang C, Bengio S, Hardt M, Recht B, Vinyals O (2017) Understanding deep learning requires rethinking generalization. https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.03530. Accessed 10 Dec 2021
Zhuming (2020) Computer-aided design and manufacturing. John Wiley and Sons Inc, Hoboken
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Terzidis, K., Fabrocini, F. & Lee, H. Unintentional intentionality: art and design in the age of artificial intelligence. AI & Soc 38, 1715–1724 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-021-01378-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-021-01378-8