From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Mon Sep 28 1998 - 14:01:41 MDT
Where are the da Vincis, the Rembrandts, the Bach or Mozart, the Homer or
Shakespeare of this age? Why has modern art degenerated into a test to see
how random or tawdry art has become, and why does modern music sound like
noise even to the teenagers? Why are modern novels either incomprehensible,
why is modern philosophy incomprehensible, and why is modern poetry boring?
In the old days, the brightest minds of a generation became writers or
philosophers. Today they are scientists.
In the old days, the poetic souls were drawn to art or poetry. Today they are
science-fiction writers.
In the old days, the mathematical minds wrote music. Today they are computer programmers.
There are so many new professions which employ to the utmost human
intelligence, which are so much better paid, that the former occupations of
genius are dying; there are many competent artists, but the great geniuses of
generations have gone elsewhere, and far from science even competence becomes
rare. Compare science fiction and fiction. Compare the philosophy of AI with
philosophy. Compare "Gödel, Escher, Bach" with anything.
Except for schools dying out for lack of intelligent teachers, I see nothing
wrong with this. Once someone asked me whether computer programming was a
challenge that allowed me to use my talents; I replied: "There is no limit to
the amount of talent that can be used in computer programming." If there is
an explosion in the uses of talent, it is no surprise that those areas which
formerly had a monopoly will suffer.
When will the days of art's greatness return? Perhaps when the sterile
babblings that now inhabit these dead fields peter out, when nobody bothers
with modern art or deconstructing existentialism, when all the writers of
Westerns and singers of rap have starved or moved to flipping burgers at
McDonald's, then we will see more Hofstadters and Feynmans move in to fill the
vacuum. But these _are_ the days of art's highest flowering, and if you would
doubt it, reread "Permutation City" or "Gödel, Escher, Bach". Let those who
bemoan the lack of culture in the old and settled lands look to the true
frontiers, the eternal tests of greatness.
--
sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
http://pobox.com/~sentience/AI_design.temp.html
http://pobox.com/~sentience/sing_analysis.html
Disclaimer: Unless otherwise specified, I'm not telling you
everything I think I know.
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