AI, DADA and Surrealism: Dreaming about human culture

Some of DALL·E representations of human creativity

DADA, Surrealism, and AI generative networks have many similarities. They evolved in the 10-20ies (1910-20ies vs. 2010-20ies). They mixed old discredited culture into something new, fresh, and unique. They disrupted the traditions and antiquated concepts of our civilization. They re-interpreted the past and created new realities.

One year ago, in January 2020 I wrote an essay about this Demiurgian capability of Artificial Intelligence:

We’ve explored the imaginative power of creating non-existent things. Looking back, I see an unbelievable development of creative possibilities of Artificial Intelligence we could witness in 2020. Almost every week had brought the future closer. Now, last week OpenAI presented DALL·E.

What is DALL·E?

DALL·E is one of the great examples of the occurring future. Like mind-blowing language model GPT-3 its existence scrutinizes the meaning of human effort to create - as Dadaists and Surrealists did. What previously was called “art” for being aligned to traditions…