Ask HN: Is an activity no longer creative once AI can do it really well?
2 points
22 hours ago
| 3 comments
| HN
For example, when AI can routinely achieve perfect scores on math contests, will the problem solving in those contests still be considered creative?
neom
21 hours ago
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I know nothing of math, but I think I have a fairly unique view of this because I studied film making in my 20s when the shift to digital happened, and I was the first cohort through the first digital film program in my country.

Humans love novelty, it's what got us out of the cave, if you look at studies on boredom, they lead to sadism, that's how much humans hate boredom. When new ways to create become available, the people who struggle are often the ones who are unable to adapt their mindset to the new creative mediums and don't think "what is new to be done here" - I know nothing of the math word, actually I'm in awe of it, I have dyscalculia so I am blind to numbers etc, but I would guess that there will always be physics to explore, so there will always be math to be done, just, much like art, it will change?

AI becomes a new tool for creativity, and there will always be creative humans working to escape the pain of boredom.

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anyg
21 hours ago
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I always go back to chess when I have these kinds of doubts. Deep down, we like human creativity and that's what made AlphaZero's chess entertaining for us as well as it wasn't as unnatural as traditional chess engines. But, we still enjoy playing and watching chess. Many new approaches have been discovered using powerful engines which probably would not have been tried out without them. The same thing can happen with math problems. We may have fresh takes on problems previously considered unsolvable, etc.
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amichail
21 hours ago
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But would this happen for high school math contests?
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anyg
20 hours ago
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Yes. People like competing with people
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incomingpain
20 hours ago
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I would suggest painting is one of the ultimate creative efforts.

But did photoshop, 3dsmax, digital photography or similar ways to print to photo paper or canvas prints make painting irrelevant? No not at all. The dentist lobby paintings got replaced cheaply but it made real paintings worth more.

AI is no different.

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