What does it mean to be human in a world where machines too can be artists? The Uncanny Muse
explores the history of automation in the arts and delves into one of the most momentous and
controversial aspects of AI: artificial creativity. The adoption of technology and machinery
has long transformed the world but as the potential for artificial intelligence expands David
Hajdu examines the new increasingly urgent questions about technology's role in culture.
From the life-size mechanical doll that made headlines in Victorian London to the doll's modern
AI-pop star counterpart Hajdu traces the fascinating varied ways in which inventors and
artists have sought to emulate mental processes and mechanize creative production. For decades
machines and artists have engaged in expressing the human condition-along with the condition of
living with machines-through player pianos broadcasting technology electric organs digital
movie effects synthesizers and motion capture. By communicating and informing human knowledge
the machines have exerted considerable influence on the history of art-and often more influence
than humans have been willing to recognize. As Hajdu proclaims: "before machine learning there
was machine teaching." With thoughtful wide-ranging and surprising turns from Berry Gordy
and George Harrison to Andy Warhol and Stevie Wonder David Hajdu takes a novel and contrarian
approach: he sees how machines through the ages have enabled creativity not stifled it-and The
Uncanny Muse sees no reason why this shouldn't be the case with AI today.
