In the trailer for Lawrence Lek’s 2017 film Geomancer — played during a panel on “AI & Creativity” he was involved in at this year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam — a conversant, seemingly sentient AI asks viewers an unanswerable question. “Do you know what it is to see every wave, every bird, and every animal, a trillion shards of sunlight reflected on the water?” It encourages the viewer to consider a nonhuman perspective. But the real question at the center of the event was not whether AI could be conscious, or even conscientious, but whether it could be considered creative. Responses from the panel’s four speakers were varied, but they shared a common disinterest with the question itself, rejecting the presumption that human value judgements could be applied to something nonhuman. New ways of thinking are required with new technologies, rather than the blanket application of old criteria onto new paradigms.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
