The Creativity Code asks the question “can AI truly be creative?” and supplies information on AI technologies from 2019 and earlier that may prove or disprove the answer. This book covers more than just AI generated art, including games, music, math, literature, and algorithms in an easy to digest way, even for those who may not be as knowledgeable in machine learning or similar technologies. Some of the examples presented pass the Turing test (a test to see if an observer cannot distinguish between AI and human creation) but the real question is not if AI can create pieces undistinguishable from human works, but does this make an AI creative?

I could tell you that I believe AI is currently creating incredible works, from DALLE’s art, to deepfake video and audio, to deeply personalized algorithms for content and ads. Myself and many others believe these to be works which will very soon rival the creations of human artists, potentially disrupting the job market of many creatives.

Is this machine creativity? Or is the programmer who created the AI the one responsible for the creations? Would an AI need to be conscious in order to be truly creative? Can an AI ever be conscious… heck what even is consciousness and how will we know when it has occurred??

If you are interesting in any of these questions I highly recommend this book. It also provides a great history on AI technologies within the last few decades which provides great context for understanding the impressive development in our current technologies only 3~ years later.

Note: Listened free with Audible Premium. This book only took me a year to read because I’m sometimes poor with time management and not starting dozens of other books while I’m already reading one