Frieder Nake

[Frieder Nake @CarlCanary]

Alle vier Jahre wieder https://t.co/MSnz04KMyj #Sport

[Frieder Nake @CarlCanary]

@markamerika Amazing, yes, dear Mark. We are the tools that we use. So, better, exchange old for new ones.

[Frieder Nake @CarlCanary]

I read, there are machines that take an input text to generate images from it. That’s meant to be surprising. Haven’t programs always been texts? You mean, natural language texts are different? So what? Isn’t there Natural Language Programming?

[Frieder Nake @CarlCanary]

Ah, now I get it! The work that was generated by software that you had generated yourself, sold for a lot of money. Therefore, some call the software “intelligent” (with an additional “artificial” as sort of a disclaimer). Are they stupid?

[Frieder Nake @CarlCanary]

When, through your own efforts, you develop software to generate images, and when the gallerist shows them to the public, and even sells some, and if they are considered to be “art”, why, the hell, is that software “intelligent”? You are! It isn’t!

[Frieder Nake @CarlCanary]

Is “Botto” – the current artist that is a package of software making a lot of money – the late offspring of Italian artist Sandro Botticelli of 15th century? (Famous for his “The birth of Venus”.) Would the answer be interesting? Most likely not.

[Frieder Nake @CarlCanary]

@markamerika Indeed, different. Where I am, people don't walk on water. Are you now living in Palestine, dear Mark?

[Frieder Nake @CarlCanary]

There are people around who successfully predict new modes of creativity when humans and AI will be working together. Seriously: “working together”. Not: “humans using software”. One such software is called “Botto”. An artist is its inventor.

[Frieder Nake @CarlCanary]

Two extremes of ideological creations to keep people un-enlightened: “god” (a sign for the unity of everything); and “AI” (a sign for the emptiness of our time). Using any of the two requires that you voluntarily give up your own thinking.

[Frieder Nake @CarlCanary]

There are many who understand very little of what computers can do and cannot do. Thus, they believe those machines are intelligent. Really sad, isn't it. I have colleagues in academia who think the same. More than sad.

[Frieder Nake @CarlCanary]

"Wirklich, ich lebe in finsteren Zeiten" (truly, I live in dark times). Bertold Brecht wrote this during the first years of the German Nazi regime. Are we witnessing dark times, again?

[Frieder Nake @CarlCanary]

Some bright minds were thrilled so much by machinization of mental labor that they themselves gave up thinking and called the new machines not computers anymore, but “Artificial Intelligence” or even AI. Sad, but funny.

[Frieder Nake @CarlCanary]

Aeons passed in human history before only recently a class of machines was constructed to machinize mental labor. These machines are called computers. Before that, machinery was to machinize manual labor.

[Frieder Nake @CarlCanary]

When paradise was lost, labor and work were no longer the great unique human capability, but labor and work became a curse and drudgery. Therefore, humans started inventing tools, and division of labor, and machines.

[Frieder Nake @CarlCanary]

Human labor always starts and ends in our use of body and mind. Shortly after paradise, that was all they had, but they didn’t even know that. When their god chased them out of paradise, he told them, now you must sweat before you get to eat.

[Frieder Nake @CarlCanary]

One of those trivialities that lovers of something called "Artificial Intelligence" permanently forget and, therefore, must be reminded of day by day: humans have muscles and brains, and labor is manual & mental, their unity.

[Frieder Nake @CarlCanary]

Finally, the infinite boredom of paradise came to an end when Adam & Eve did what their job had been from the beginning: to rebel against their god. Life became interesting because there now was joy and suffering. We should celebrate sin as the great liberation.

[Frieder Nake @CarlCanary]

Am 4. Juni 1859 wurden nahe der Kleinstadt Magenta in der Lombardei im Krieg zwischen Napoleon III. und Habsburg so viele Soldaten abgeschlachtet, dass die Erde sich rot färbte. (F. von Schirach) Heute eine Farbe ohne Geschichte. So geht Geschichte.

[Frieder Nake @CarlCanary]

Da es auf Deutsch geschrieben ist, schreibe ich diese Empfehlung in dieser Sprache: "Kaffee und Zigaretten" von Ferdinand von Schirach, ja, dem. Kurze Begebenheiten, Anekdoten, Geschichten, Lehren, Gedanken. Leicht, tief oft, zum Nachdenken.

[Frieder Nake @CarlCanary]

From an exchange with a friend from early algorithmic art in the US: "The human body is analogue -- including the brain. The brain seems to work well too -- unless you are a politician."