They've Taught an AI to Compose an Original Rembrandt Painting - Core77

Earlier this year there was an unprecedented collaboration between ING, Microsoft and TU Delft, with the willing participation of Dutch museums Mauritshuis and Rembrandthuis, to teach an artificial intelligence to paint a Rembrandt. Not to duplicate an existing Rembrandt, but to paint an original one, with a unique composition and using a person who never existed as the subject. The idea was that the AI could analyze and learn Rembrandt's style and then produce, on request, an original portrait based on certain parameters ("Thirtysomething male, black hat, white collar, looking to the right.") Here's how they did it, and here's the frighteningly convincing image that the computer reproduced--on a 3D printer, no less, to simulate the height of brushstrokes: It was called the Next Rembrandt project, and I have very mixed feelings about it. While it is unquestionably an impressive technological achievement, ought we be moving AI into those non-numerical areas of human creativity?