The Imitation Machine with Mario Carpo

Generative AI is today one of the most universally disliked technologies in the history of humankind. For very good reasons--well known to all. Yet in the design professions we have been experimenting with Generative AI for almost ten years now, and we can offer a more balanced appraisal of the potentials, and limits, of this new technology. Generative AI is a machine that makes new stuff out of old stuff. Everything new that we get out of Generative AI derives from something we have put into it. Generative AI is a revolutionary imitation machine, where imitation does not mean copy, but assimilation and transformation.

By the way it works, Generative AI reminds us that every new creation derives to some extent from precedent; it reminds us that imitation, style, and tradition are indispensable and inevitable components of every form of creativity. But by the way it works, Generative AI also reminds us that creative imitation can only take us so far; and that sometimes we want to do better than the models that inspire us.