Episode 170: Marcus du Sautoy

A.I.MathematicsArt
Written By Michael LaBlanc

Listen to Episode on:

 
 

Watch the Unabridged Interview:

Order Books

 

Understanding Human Creativity

As machine learning and AI mature and adapt to the humans that created them, it's important we  think carefully about not only what is creativity, but what is uniquely human about creativity.

Marcus du Sautoy is the Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the Oxford University, a chair he holds jointly at the Department of Continuing Education and the Mathematical Institute, as well as a Professor of Mathematics and a Fellow of New College.

His many books dive deep into the world of machines and creativity, and include “Thinking Better: the Art of the Shortcut,” and “The Creativity Code.”

He sits down for this stimulating conversation with Greg covering generative adversarial networks, Ada Lovelace and machine generated music, crediting the code or the coder, and what the future holds for art & AI.

Episode Quotes:

Two kinds of algorithm we need at work:

“You need a sort of two algorithms at work. One is the creator coming up with babbling new ideas. And then the second is like, oh, the judgments. No, that's no good. That doesn't work because of this. And you know in my own research, I often pair up with another mathematician and we play these two roles, the creator and the discriminator.

So, I think some of the most interesting algorithms that we're seeing that are beginning to look like they're making something genuinely new are capturing that element that we take advantage of as humans.”

Machines still need humans

“Machines might be able to do things at speed or at depth that a human could never achieve. But ultimately, we should credit the creativity with the human that told the machine what to do.”

The Emotional Resonance to Mathematics

“Ada Lovelace went to see, you know, Charles Babbage making a machine do math, but, no, it wasn't doing math. It was doing arithmetic and that's the kind of bread and butter. But mathematics is something much more creative. And, we use this word creativity as a kind of protective shield about, against why a computer can't do what we're doing, because we're making lots of leaps into the unknown, lots of choices, things we choose proofs, which kind of move us emotionally because they got “Aha” moment in them.”

Show Links:

Recommended Resources:

Guest Profile:

His Work:

Michael LaBlanc
Previous

Episode 171: Ian Leslie
Next

Episode 169: Massimo Pigliucci