Arthur Miller

This event was originally scheduled for the 2020 festival, when it was titled The Artist in the Machine: The World of AI-Powered Creativity. Tickets booked for this event remain valid for the new date. If you exchanged your ticket for a credit and still wish to attend, you will need to rebook using your credit. See how to use and claim credits.

Professor Arthur Miller explains how computers powered by artificial intelligence will one day create art, literature and music of a sort that we cannot presently imagine. 

Miller says today’s computers can see things we cannot see and imagine what we cannot imagine. In this way they can improvise music, create art in new styles and write fiction, drama, poetry and screenplays. But are computers truly creative or are they a tool for musicians, writers and artists? Miller looks at the latest work of researchers to argue that computers are already showing glimpses of creativity and could one day surpass us.

Miller is emeritus professor of history and philosophy of science at University College London. He is the author of Colliding Worlds: How Cutting-Edge Science is Redefining Contemporary Art and Einstein, Picasso: Space, Time, and the Beauty That Causes Havoc.

This event is part of the festival’s programme of American literature and culture.

In association with MIT Press.