Generative art made with algorithms has existed since the early days of computing in the 1960s. In recent years, a new strand of generative art has emerged: AI-generated art, which leverages the recent progress of artificial intelligence to create artworks. Unlike old-fashioned generative art, AI-generated art is not produced with an explicit set of programming instructions provided by human artists; instead, it involves training an algorithm on a dataset so that it can later produce artworks (images, music, or video clips) using its own internal parameters that have not been explicitly defined by a human. This process raises fascinating questions at the intersection of computer science, art history, and the philosophy of art. At a superficial level of analysis, AI-generated art seems to offload much of the creative impetus of art production to the machine, requiring minimal intervention from the artist. On closer inspection, however, it involves a novel process of curation at two key stages: upstream in the selection of the dataset on which the algorithm is trained, and downstream in the selection of the outputs that should qualify as artworks. Instead of replacing human artists with computers, AI-generated art can be understood as a new kind of collaboration between mind and machine, both of which contribute to the aesthetic value of the final artwork.
This seminar will bring together AI artists and philosophers to explore the significance of this new mode of art production. It will discuss the implications of AI-generated art for the definition of art, the nature of the relationship between artists and tools, the process of digital curation, and whether AI systems can be as creative as humans.
Event Speakers
- Sougwen Chung, artist and researcher
- Helena Sarin, visual artist
- Anne Spalter, digital mixed-media artist
- Katherine Thomson-Jones, Professor of Philosophy at Oberlin College
- Moderated by Raphaël Millière, Presidential Scholar in Society and Neuroscience at Columbia University
Event Information
Free and open to the public. Registration is required via Eventbrite. Registered attendees will receive an event link shortly before the seminar begins.
This event is hosted by the Presidential Scholars in Society and Neuroscience as part of the Seminars in Society and Neuroscience series.
The Center for Science and Society makes every reasonable effort to accommodate individuals with disabilities. If you require disability accommodations to attend a Center for Science and Society event, please contact us at scienceandsociety@columbia.edu or (212) 853-1612 at least 10 days in advance of the event. For more information, please visit the campus accessibility webpage.
A prominent logician Melvin Fitting has turned 80. This hybrid conference is a special event in his honor.
Melvin Fitting was in the departments of Computer Science, Philosophy, and Mathematics at the CUNY Graduate Center and in the department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Lehman College. He is now Professor Emeritus. He has authored 11 books and over a hundred research papers with staggering citation figures. In 2012, Melvin Fitting was given the Herbrand Award by the Conference on Automated Deduction (CADE) for distinguished contributions to the field. In 2019, Professor Fitting received a Doctor Honoris Causa (an Honorary Doctorate) from the University of Bucharest.
Greetings, congratulations, photos for posting, and ZOOM link requests could be sent to Sergei Artemov by sartemov@gmail.com or sartemov@gc.cuny.edu.
Conference website https://sartemov.ws.gc.cuny.edu/fitting-at-80/
Program (the times are given in the Eastern Day Time zone EST). In-person location: CUNY Graduate Center, rm. 3310-B.
January 28, Saturday
8:00-8:45 am Arnon Avron (Tel Aviv), “Breaking the Tie: Benacerraf’s Identification Argument Revisited”
8:45-9:30 am Junhua Yu (Beijing), “Exploring Operators on Neighborhood Models”
9:30-9:45 am Break
9:45-10:30 am Sara Negri (Genoa), “Faithful Modal Embedding: From Gödel to Labelled Calculi”
10:30-11:15 am Heinrich Wansing (Bochum), “Remarks on Semantic Information and Logic. From Semantic Tetralateralism to the Pentalattice 65536_5”
11:15-11:30 am Break
11:30 am -12:15 pm Roman Kuznets (Vienna), “On Interpolation”
12:15-1:00 pm Walter Carnielli (Campinas), “Combining KX4 and S4: A logic that encompasses factive and non-factive evidence“
1:00-1:15 pm Break
1:15-2:00 pm Eduardo Barrio and Federico Pailos (Buenos Aires), “Meta-classical Non-classical Logics”
2:00-2:45 pm Graham Priest (New York), “Jaśkowski and the Jains: a Fitting Tribute”
2:45-4:00 pm Session of memories and congratulations featuring Sergei Artemov, Anil Nerode, Hiroakira Ono, Melvin Fitting, and others.
This talk explores the reflexive nature of consciousness, which consists primarily in the fact that a state of consciousness has a reflexive relation to the subject who has that state, so that the subject can typically be aware of itself as having that state. Comparing Kant’s, Fichte’s, and selected contemporary analytic theories of this reflexivity shows that there is a crucial difference in the way the relation between form (or mode) and content of a state of consciousness is conceived. The first part examines Kant’s formal theory of consciousness: reflexivity is understood not in terms of a self-referential content resulting from a reflection on the state of the subject, but as the universal transcendental form that any content must have in order to be representationally significant and potentially conscious to the subject. The second part examines Fichte’s departure from Kant in his theory of a self-positing consciousness: in the original act of self-positing, the mere form of reflexivity is turned into a self-referential content that determines the subject as an object from the absolute standpoint of consciousness. The third part examines analytic theories that explain the reflexivity (or what is often called the subjective character) of consciousness on a model of mental indexicality. These theories tend to reduce reflexivity to an objective constituent of content that, although often implicit, can be read off from the subject’s contextual situatedness in nature. In conclusion, Kant’s theory can be understood as a moderate, human-centered kind of perspectivism that navigates between Fichtean absolute subjectivity and a naturalist absolute objectivity.
Registration is free but required. A registration link will be shared via email with our department mailing lists a few weeks before the event. Please contact Jack Mikuszewski at jhm378@nyu.edu if you did not receive a registration link.
The Philosophy Department provides reasonable accommodations to people with disabilities. Requests for accommodations should be submitted to philosophy@nyu.edu at least two weeks before the event.
When someone is in a conscious state, must they be aware of that state? The Buddhist philosopher Dignāga offers a brilliant route to answering this question by leveraging the role awareness might play as a constraint on memory. I begin by clarifying his strategy and what conclusions it might be used to establish. Here I examine different candidate directions of explanation between consciousness and inner awareness. I interpret the metaphor of consciousness as a lamp that lights itself, and use the metaphor to distinguish between his view and contemporary higher-order theories of consciousness. I then turn to explain why the memory argument fails. The first main problem is that, contrary to Dignāga’s contemporary defenders, there is no good way to use the argument to reach a conclusion about all conscious states. The second main problem is that the proposed awareness constraint on memory is highly problematic, in tension both with ancient objections as well as current psychology.
With responses from Lu Teng (NYU Shanghai)
How does the brain cope with Complexity? How do we make decisions when confronted with practically infinite streams of information?
The conference showcases cutting edge research on these questions in Neuroscience and Psychology (neural mechanisms of cognitive control, exploration, decision-making, information demand, memory and creativity), Computer Science (artificial intelligence of curiosity and intrinsic motivation) and Economics (decision making and information demand). Alongside formal presentations, the conference will encourage ample interactions among faculty, students and postdocs through informal discussions and poster presentations.
Submissions for poster presentations and travel awards are due February 15, 2023. Please visit the call for submissions for complete requirements.
Event Information
Free and open to the public. Registration is required and will open shortly. All in-person attendees must follow Columbia’s COVID-19 policies. Visitors will be asked to provide proof of COVID-19 vaccination. Online attendees will receive a Zoom link. Please email events@zi.columbia.edu with any questions.
We are pleased to announce that the 26th annual meeting of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness will be held at New York University on June 22-25, 2023.
Submissions for talks and posters are now open with a deadline of February 15, 2023. Conference registration will open in early 2023.
Keynote speakers, symposia, tutorials, and housing have now been arranged, as specified below.
Please direct any inquiries to ASSC26@nyu.edu.
We hope to see you soon in New York!
Ned Block and David Chalmers, Conference Directors
We are seeking submissions for our 14th annual conference hosted in Spring, 2024.
Send abstracts to newyorkcityearlymodern [at] gmail.com by December 8, 2023.
https://philevents.org/event/show/114750