Robotics Reference
In-Depth Information
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Creative Computers
Creativity is sometimes taken to be an inexplicable aspect of human
activity.
—Bruce Buchanan [1]
What is creativity? More than fifty definitions from different
sources are listed by Calvin Taylor, but no matter how we
choose to define it, creativity is an essential component of
intelligence. Any discussion of Turing's question “Can machines think?”
should therefore include a consideration of whether or not machines can
be creative. And, in parallel with Turing's view that a machine should be
regarded as intelligent if it gives the appearance of being intelligent, we
may similarly accept that, in order to be regarded as creative, a machine
need not simulate the human thought processes that underlie creativity
but should merely have to produce results of at least the same quality as
those produced by human creativity.
Along with Turing's question and the doubts expressed by many peo-
ple at the notion that computers can have emotions, the subject of com-
puter creativity gives rise to a host of quasi-philosophical doubts and
arguments that started as long ago as 1843, when Ada Lovelace wrote in
her account of Charles Babbage's proposed Analytical Engine:
It is desirable to guard against the possibility of exaggerated ideas
that might arise as to the powers of the Analytical Engine. The
Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate any-
thing. It can do (only) whatever we know how to order it to
perform. [2]
Although Lovelace was arguing against any notion of creativity in the case
of one specific machine, the Analytical Engine, she was by implication
railing against the concept of creativity in all machines that act strictly in
accordance with how we program them to perform. Fast-forward more
than 100 years, to 1953, and we find a very similar dogma from Lord
