StoryAlity#141 – The Robo-Raconteur – a StoryAlity Theory Artificial-Writer

“The Robo-Raconteur” – a StoryAlity Theory Artificial-Writer computer-program

So, a great question to ask: Can computers be creative-?

Symbolic representation of a creative computer – (with, an interrobang – !?)

Answer: Yes. Or, No. Or Maybe.

Depends who you ask, and, what definition and what criteria of creativity they are using. And whether they understand what computers and algorithms are, and what they can do. (Organisms are algorithms, see Harari (2017), Homo Deus) Also – it depends, How good they are, at actually judging all that stuff! (See D K Simonton’s point on creativity, about: `Who is to judge The Judges?’)

`There is some debate about what judges should be told (Runco 1989) and about how judges should be selected. As Murray (1959) put it, who is to judge the judges? And the judges of the judges? There is even controversy about the need for agreement (and reliability) among judges. Csikszentmihalyi and Getzels (1970) proposed that some disagreement is useful for it indicates that the judges are covering various perspectives. The problem is that any disagreement will lower estimates of reliability.’

(Simonton in The Handbook of Creativity ed: Sternberg 1999, p. 87)

Either way, the definition that I use is: the standard definition of creativity (Runco & Jaeger 2012).

Also by the way – if you didn’t know, this is an interrobang: an exclamation-mark combined with a question mark.

An interrobang.

And so, here is a startling quote about what a “creative” product is, from Martindale (1990):

`Ultimately, all creative products have this quality: old ideas or elements are combined in new ways. This is the case for all domains of creativity.’

(Martindale, 1989, p. 212).

Note how the interrobang is a combination of two old things into a new thing, and, it works.

Anyway – so: Can Computers Be Creative?

A Longish Answer – Read this great book, by creativity researcher Margaret Boden, in particular, chapters Five (5), through Eight (8)-!

The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms (Boden 2004)

i.e. Sometimes, somewhat-complex questions – with detailed answers – often don’t have short, snappy, `general’ answers, that are very useful.

Also – a shorter answer – read this whole book, but, particularly pages 147-8 on “Artificial Writers” (computer programs)…!

Explaining Creativity – R K Sawyer (2nd ed, 2012)

Also, if you want to understand my inspirations and “the thinking” here, then read the last 10 pages of this (pp. 408-416): (or even better still, read the whole thing)!

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2015)

And – read all of this:

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (Harari 2017)

And – I could get into loads more references of books that inspired me to build this robot – but, that’s a start. Well okay then, one more – another great (also, big) book: Boden, M. A. (2008). Mind as Machine: A History of Cognitive Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

mind as machine: A History of Cognitive Science (Boden 2008)

Also here is an interesting New Scientist article: Artificially intelligent painters invent new styles of art (29 Jun 2017).

So, I built an Artificial-Writer computer-program, that integrates some of StoryAlity Theory (as derived from my 2016 PhD study of creativity in movie creation).

And, it’s called “The Robo-Raconteur“. It looks like this –

The Robo-Raconteur, an artificial-writer computer-program, that uses the StoryAlity Theory of extremely-high (and extremely-low) RoI movies.

A definition of that French-sounding word:

raconteur: (noun.): a person [or algorithm] who tells anecdotes in a skilful and amusing way.

(synonyms): storyteller, teller of tales, spinner of yarns, narrator, relater, [story-]recounter.

So:

The Robo-Raconteur.

A 4 minute demo: (you just download the Excel file, run it, and press F9 a few times – and click the 7 tabs along the bottom of the Excel worksheet… Easy!)

More things about it:

AN EXPLANATORY-ARTICLE ABOUT IT (DRAFT-ONLY, on Academia.edu)

A 40-page article, explaining what it is, and how it works, is online, here.

(The Short-Story: It generates, story pitches (including, `transmedia universes’), and then, it judges / `ranks’ them, into the best, and the worst.)

Important: on a PC, `F9′ key is `recalculate’ in Excel. On a Mac, it’s: Command + =

DOWNLOAD THE ROBO-RACONTEUR (XLSM file)

You can download the artificial-writer-program (a 30-meg XLS file), here. (Yes, it’s safe. i.e. malware-free.) It’s an Excel file, with Macros in it.

AN ANONYMOUS 5-10 MIN ONLINE SURVEY, ABOUT IT ALL

And – you can even take a 5-minute survey about it (the Robo-Raconteur), here!

THE 1-PAGE `INVITE & INSTRUCTIONS for The Robo-Raconteur (for very busy people, or even, bots)

And – if you don’t want to read the whole 40-page [draft] article about it, then you can even just download the `1-page Instructions‘ and try it out, here!

The Robo-Raconteur, an artificial-writer computer-program (and Transmedia-Pitch-generator), that uses the StoryAlity Theory of extremely high (and extremely-low) RoI movies.

-Enjoy~!*

Important: on a PC, `F9′ key is `recalculate’ in Excel. On a Mac, it’s: Command + =

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*June 2017 – Update – There was a great interview about computational-creativity (and artificial-writers) on ABC Radio National on 1st June 2017, and you can hear it… here! Interview with Ross Goodwin (Creative Technologist) and Dave King (CEO & founder of Move37).

 eg Ross was talking about this kind of stuff:

And for a more intense look at it, see, also:

Gillings, M., Hilbert, M., & Kemp, D. (2016). Information in the Biosphere: Biological and Digital Worlds. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 31(3), 180-189.

And – another Update!

This was a sensational 2017 episode of SPARK (with Nora Young), about: algorithms and ethics!

Listen to the full Spark Ep (53 mins), here! Or – sections of the Ep, below:

How an algorithm can help you make decisions (includes: computational kindness-! And, The Abeline Paradox…)

Can an algorithm be unfair? (on algorithmic bias!)

Can an algorithm detect sarcasm better than you? (Probably, yes…)

Weapons of Math Destruction (the Ethics of Big Data algorithms…!)

~ & Thanks for reading !!!

(…even if, you’re: a bot)

Comments always welcome.

(well; unless, you’re: a bot)

~JTV

PS – This story was also interesting: Researchers shut down AI that invented its own language (July 2017)

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JT Velikovsky, PhD

High-RoI Story/Screenplay/Movie and Transmedia Researcher

& Evolutionary Systems Analyst

& Human and Computer Creativity Researcher

& Million-selling Transmedia Writer

& Rural Firefighter

& Random Person*

*(as is everyone; Who says all hominids are not created equal-?)

The above is (mostly) an adapted excerpt, from my doctoral thesis: “Communication, Creativity and Consilience in Cinema”. It is presented here for the benefit of fellow screenwriting, filmmaking and creativity researchers. For more, see https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky

JT Velikovsky is also a produced feature film screenwriter and million-selling transmedia writer-director-producer. He has been a professional story analyst for major film studios, film funding organizations, and for the national writer’s guild. For more see: http://on-writering.blogspot.com/

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NOTES

 

Can computers really be creative? Frankly it’s all a bit deliberately-ambiguous.

As, that’s what Martindale (1990) says it should be, if, you’re doing it right.

The Clockwork Muse (Martindale 1990)

REFERENCES

Boden, M. A. (2004). The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms (2nd ed.). London; New York: Routledge.

Martindale, C. (1989). Personality, Situation and Creativity. In J. A. Glover, R. R. Ronning & C. R. Reynolds (Eds.), Handbook of Creativity: Perspectives on Individual Differences (pp. 211-232). New York; London: Plenum.

Runco, M. A., & Jaeger, G. J. (2012). The Standard Definition of Creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 24(1), 92-96.

Sawyer, R. Keith (2012), Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation (2nd ed. edn.; New York: Oxford University Press).

Simonton, D. K., (1999) `Experimental Studies of Creativity’ in (ed) Sternberg, R. J. (1999). Handbook of Creativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Simonton, D. K. (2012). Taking the U.S. Patent Office Criteria Seriously: A Quantitative Three-Criterion Creativity Definition and Its Implications. Creativity Research Journal, 24(2-3), 97–106.

Velikovsky, J. T. (2016). `Communication, Creativity and Consilience in Cinema: A comparative study of the top 20 Return-on-Investment (RoI) Movies and the Doxa of Screenwriting’. PhD Thesis, University of Newcastle, Australia. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1324018

Velikovsky, J. T. (2016). `The Holon/Parton Theory of the Unit of Culture (or the Meme, and Narreme) in Science, Media, Entertainment and the Arts’, chapter in A. Connor & S. Marks (Eds.), Creative Technologies for Multidisciplinary Applications. New York: IGI Global.

Velikovsky, J. T. (2017). Chapter 405: The Holon/Parton Structure of the Meme, or, The Unit Of Culture. In M. Khosrow-Pour (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, Fourth Edition (pp. 4666-4678). New York: IGI Global.

Wilson, E. O. ([1998] 1999). Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1st Vintage Books ed.). New York: Knopf: Random House; ebrary Inc.