Event overview
Simon Colton will present the first Whitehead Lecture of 2012 on his work in Computational Creativity.
Poster at
Abstract:
In Computational Creativity research, we study how to engineer software that can take on some of the creative responsibility in arts and science projects. In recent years, we have undertaken a practical approach to addressing questions arising in Computational Creativity. In particular, we have built software that can perform mathematical discovery; software that automates cognitive and physical aspects of the painting process; software which helps in game design; and most recently, a corpus-based poetry generator.聽We have applied聽our research to projects in automated mathematics, video聽game design,聽graphic design and the visual arts.聽This broad spectrum of applications has enabled us to take a holistic view, and develop various philosophical notions, resulting in a set of guiding principles for the development of autonomously creative software, and a fledgling formalisation聽called Computational聽Creativity Theory, which will be the subject聽of a major EPSRC-funded project that has just started.
In the talk, I will 聽describe our practical applications, the guiding聽principles聽and the formalisations. I will then focus on one of the the most聽thorny issues聽in Computational Creativity, namely how to assess the聽creativity聽of the software we write.聽We have argued that Turing-style comparison tests are wholly inappropriate in Computational Creativity research, as they encourage pastiche and naivety.聽 We will discuss this issue with reference to聽The聽Painting Fool聽system -聽 which we hope will one day be taken seriously聽as a聽creative artist in its聽 own right.聽Like any other artist, The Painting聽 Fool should be horrified if people confuse its creations with those of聽 someone else - whether human or machine. So鈥�. should we really聽 apply Turing-style聽tests to this aspiring creative talent?
Bio:
Dr. Simon Colton is an AI researcher and Reader in Computational Creativity at the Department of Computing of Imperial College, London. He leads the Computational Creativity research group of around 10 people and is an EPSRC Leadership Fellow, employed as a full time researcher on the "Computational Creativity Theory" project. In the past four years, he has been the principal investigator on six EPSRC/TSB funded projects. He has published more than 130 papers on various aspects of AI research, and his work has been recognised by national and international awards, as well as being covered in the print, TV and radio media.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 18 Jan 2012 | 4:00pm - 6:00pm |
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