Deep Time and Intelligence panel presentation at MIT: 2021 "Unfolding Intelligence" Symposium
How has computation shaped the concept of intelligence? What models for the unfolding in time of thought does it provide? This panel takes up the question of intelligence by addressing time scales from that of the infant to that of evolution. In the lived time of thinking and doing, rhythm and reflection interweave with anticipation and forecasting. Temporal forms, like recursion, also structure training protocols used in computational models of thinking and sensing. From a composer musician who sees the training of AI as a novel ritual form to a musicologist of paleolithic sonic intelligence and a computer scientist’s account of multi-modal sensory training inputs, this panel resituates AI within the long durée of thinking and microbursts of ingenuity called training or learning.
Featuring: William Lockett (convener), Markus Buehler, Holly Herndon, Gary Tomlinson, and Antonio Torralba
About the Symposium
“Unfolding Intelligence: The Art and Science of Contemporary Computation” is third in a series of MIT CAST symposia that bring together artists, scientists, engineers, and humanists from a variety of disciplines to address topics of common concern in areas of rapidly evolving research and urgent social relevance.
“Unfolding Intelligence: The Art and Science of Contemporary Computation” gathers artists, scientists, and humanists to discuss aesthetic, technical, and critical issues pertaining to artificial intelligence (AI) and computation. The goal of this interdisciplinary conversation is to bridge popular and tech-world understandings of AI as well as domain-specific, academic, and artistic approaches. The panel discussions stage art-science encounters with the goal of mingling otherwise enclosed areas of research, allowing for new public scrutiny and creating an inclusive field of inquiry that encourages a socially engaged view of our machines.
This virtual gathering has been organized by a team of colleagues from the MIT Center for Advanced Virtuality, the MIT Transmedia Storytelling Initiative, and the MIT Trope Tank. Online exhibitions feature The Invisible College, a multi-platform artwork developed by CAST Visiting Artist Matthew Ritchie, and an online exhibition of generative software artworks, Generative Unfoldings, which is curated by Nick Montfort. The List Visual Arts Center presents the related event, the Max Wasserman Forum.
Learn more: https://unfoldingai.mit.edu/
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About the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST)
A major cross-school initiative, the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST) creates
new opportunities for art, science and technology to thrive as interrelated, mutually informing
modes of exploration, knowledge and discovery. CAST’s multidisciplinary platform presents
performing and visual arts programs, supports research projects for artists working with science
and engineering labs, and sponsors symposia, classes, workshops, design studios, lectures and
publications. The visiting artists program is a cornerstone of CAST’s activities, which
encourages cross-fertilization among disciplines and intensive interaction with MIT’s faculty,
students, and researchers. CAST is based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
http://arts.mit.edu/cast