zlacker

> Seems like a distinction without a difference

This is giving ML models, more credit than they are due. They are unable to be imagine, they might convincingly seem to produce novel outputs, but their outputs are ultimately proscribed by their inputs and datasets and programming. They're machines. Humans can learn like machines, but humans are also able to imagine as agents. "AI" "art" is just neither of its namesakes. That doesn't mean it isn't impressive, but implying they are the same is granting ML more powers and abilities than it is capable of.

>>beezle+(OP)
Humans imagine by mostly by interpolating things they’ve seen before. Add in some randomness and you get novel output (creativity).

>>dymk+O1
You're oversimplifying imagination. It could be related to something they've seen before, or it could not be. It could be entirely invented and novel in a way that has no antecedent to senses. Nor is it mere randomness added in. Imagining is something an agent does and is capable of. The fly in the ointment is still that ML models simply do not have agency in a fundamental way; they are programmed and they're are limited by that programming, that's what makes them and computers so effective as tools: they do exactly as they are programmed, which can't be said for humans. We, as humans, might find the output imaginative or novel or even surprising, but the ML model hasn't done anything more than follow through on its programming. The ML programmer simply didn't expect (or can't explain the programming) the output and is anthropomorphizing their own creation as a means of explanation.

>>beezle+T4
But you know. Everything you said can easily be imagined to apply to humans as well. You can’t see your own programming, and so can’t fully understand it, and so you imagine it to be something more than what it is.

>>mtrowe+Wj
The problem you run into with that is that saying "humans are programmed" in the identical sense as "computers are programmed" is nonsensical. We have powers that computers simply do not, like agency, imagination, we are capable of understanding, etc. So, the concept of programming a computer and "programming a human" would mean different things, which they do in our language. You run into either fundamentally redefining what programming means, placing sentient, agential, humans on the same plane as non sentient, non agential, machines; or you run into a situation where it makes no sense to say "Humans are programmed identically to computers."

But if you say "humans are programmed" in a metaphorical sense, then yeah sure that's an interesting thought experiment. But it's still a thought experiment.