AI Inside: Artificial Aesthetics

For Wednesday, January 29, 2025

In the latest episode of AI Inside, Jeff Jarvis and I had the pleasure of chatting with Lev Manovich, professor of computer science at CUNY and co-author of "Artificial Aesthetics," about the intersection of AI and creativity. Our conversation explored how AI is fundamentally changing our understanding of art, creativity, and human expression. Manovich shared insights about his personal experience using AI tools as an artist, describing it as "having thousands of very skilled assistants" while noting that these assistants "have their own mind".

One of the most compelling moments came when Manovich discussed his creative process with AI, describing it as sometimes collaborative and sometimes confrontational: "The way I think of working creatively with AI, sometimes AI works as your collaborator, and other times, it's like a war". This tension, he explained, often leads to his most interesting artistic results, particularly when the AI misinterprets or challenges his original vision. He specifically noted that "when AI simply executes almost mechanically what I want, to me, this is boring".

Regarding the historical context of creativity and art, Manovich challenged our modern conception of the artist, pointing out that "for most of human history, art was about skills" and that the concept of the artist as a creative individual is "a very modern idea" that's "only maybe about 200 years old". This historical perspective provided a fascinating framework for understanding how AI might reshape our future understanding of creativity and artistic expression.

DeepSeek Dominates the AI Landscape

The deepening is upon us! DeepSeek, an open source Chinese AI model, has been dominating tech news by achieving competitive results with industry giants like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google - but at a fraction of the cost and time. What's remarkable is they did this with less than $6 million and two months of development, using less powerful H800 chips due to trade restrictions.

The impact has been significant, with Nvidia experiencing a record one-day market cap loss, sliding 16.9% on Monday. Meanwhile, DeepSeek has commanded impressive download numbers across app stores and launched their Janus-Pro model family for multimodal tasks, outperforming DALL-E 3 and Stable Diffusion XL.

ChatGPT Gov

OpenAI is targeting government agencies with ChatGPT Gov, featuring enhanced security beyond Enterprise capabilities. This self-hosted solution can process sensitive information within secure environments, operating through Microsoft Azure platforms and complying with major security frameworks including IL5, CJIS, ITAR, and FedRAMP High.

Operator Research Preview

OpenAI also unveiled Operator, a premium agent service initially available to $200/month subscribers. This Computing-Using Agent simulates keyboard and mouse actions in a cloud-based browser, partnering with major platforms like Instacart, DoorDash, and Etsy.

Healthcare Innovation

Manas AI, launched by Reid Hoffman and Siddhartha Mukherjee, enters the AI drug discovery space with $24.6 million in initial funding. The startup is focusing on breast cancer, prostate cancer, and lymphoma, utilizing Microsoft data centers for AI operations.

Scientific Breakthrough

In a groundbreaking development, an AI model has created a novel fluorescent protein called esmGFP. Using ESM3, an AI system trained on 2.78 billion natural proteins, this achievement demonstrates how AI can accelerate protein engineering beyond natural evolutionary constraints.