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research 2025
PRESEARCH QUESTIONS
Chance Operations with Generative AI
15 january 2024
AI tools for artistic creation often involve disembodied interactions, these questions focus on the physical interaction between the artist, the audience and the machine powered by generative AI.
1) How do computational and robotic tools influence and shape traditional artistic techniques such as drawing, woodcutting, and sculpture, and how can AI tools enhance these existing artistic practices?
2) Does using robotic tools always bring a sense of randomness to the collaboration, and what impact does that have?
3) How can I interact with generative systems like neural networks and algorithms during the creative process in a more embodied way?
4) Who becomes the author when the work is generated by a machine, and what are the implications?
5) Can collaborative creation involving human, audience, and robot be considered a form of art?
6) How does the use of robots and agency assigned to artificial systems influence the audience’s perception of creativity and authorship?
7) How to measure aesthetic appreciation of a material artwork produced by a robot?
8) What is the significance of a digital image in relation to material artworks, and how does the human vs. AI authorship impacts this?
9) Does incorporating chance-based interventions expose biases embedded in pretrained algorithms, and does this reveal the potential ethical concerns?
10) Can chance operations disrupt the typical output patterns of pretrained image generation models, and discover innovative new fields?
11) Can strategically manipulate input features help to achieve desired effects and enlarge understanding the machine’s responsiveness?
12) Can I work more intentional with AI decision-making processes of the machine?
Examples of chance-operations in science and art:
→ In science and art the use of aleatory is known in randomized controlled trials to test effectiveness (testing effectiveness with placebo’s), Monte Carlo simulations (predicting the outcome of a series of random events in probability theory), evolutionary algorithms (evolving neural networks through random mutations), quantum mechanics (double-slit experiments where particles exhibit both wave and particle properties influenced by chance) it helps by problem-solving, to study complex systems and discuss ethical implications.
→ Within the arts chance operations are mostly known in Dada and Surrealism (like Duchamp’s 3 Standard Stoppages, dropping a three meter long thread on a canvas), the music of John Cage (using I Ching and other ancient divination methods that brought unpredictability to musical scores) and collage-art allowing spontaneous and unplanned compositions.