#dennis dutton

The Problem of A.I. Art

I personally have no doubt whatsoever that the experience of beauty, with its emotional intensity and pleasure, belongs to our evolved human psychology. The experience of beauty is one component in a whole series of Darwinian adaptations. Beauty is an adaptive effect which we extend and intensify in the creation and enjoyment of works of art and entertainment. The experience of beauty is one of the ways that evolution has of arousing and sustaining interest or fascination, even obsession, in order to encourage us toward making the most adaptive decisions for survival and reproduction. Beauty is nature's way of acting at a distance. We find beauty in something done well. Is beauty in the eye of the beholder? No, it's deep in our minds. It’s a gift handed down from the intelligent skills and rich emotional lives of our most ancient ancestors. Our powerful reaction to images, to the expression of emotion and art, to the beauty of music, to the night sky, will be with us and our descendents for as long as the human race exists.