[LUM#22] Natural Creativity

[LUM Magazine, Podcast] - Published on November 12, 2024 in Science and Society

Can artificial intelligence be creative? For researcher Charles Lecellier and photographer Harald Schmidt, while AI can be surprising, human creativity is irreplaceable.

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Charles Lecellier, a researcher at the Institute of Molecular Genetics in Montpellier and the Laboratory of Computer Science, Robotics, and Microelectronics in Montpellier, aims to combine statistical learning and molecular biology to better understand genome regulation. “As part of our outreach efforts, we wanted to illustrate the idea that current machine learning algorithms are limited by the training data,” the researcher emphasizes.

Charles Lecellier then turned to Harald Schmidt, a scientist and photographer with a keen interest in artificial intelligence. “In my photographic work, in addition to film and digital photography, I use generative computing, primarily as a tool for abstraction.”

With the advent of generative AI in 2022, Harald Schmidt discovered“a new and fascinating technology for creating photographic abstractions.” A technology that in no way replaces the photographer: “Most of the works in which I’ve applied generative computing began with an actual photographic act—captured with a digital camera or using an analog technique—to create assemblages, compositions, and mosaics.”

The researcher and the photographer emphasize that AI operates on images generated by humans and does not directly engage in a creative process.“AI is merely a reproduction of the average of what it has learned. You can’t tell it, ‘Be creative’; you have to give it guidelines. But it still produces some pretty surprising results,”the photographer explains. “The overall idea is that artificial intelligence doesn’t create; it just gives us what we ask it to give us, but human creativity remains essential and irreplaceable,”concludes Charles Lecellier.

Mixed-media works resulting from experiments in applying generative computing techniques to actual photographic works as a means of abstraction.

The colorful background images are artistic interpretations of the titles of scientific publications by Charles Lecellier and his team, created using generative computing techniques.