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The Creativity Code

Art and Innovation in the Age of AI

Marcus du Sautoy

ISBN 9780674244719

Publication date: 03/03/2020

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“A brilliant travel guide to the coming world of AI.”
—Jeanette Winterson

What does it mean to be creative? Can creativity be trained? Is it uniquely human, or could AI be considered creative?

Mathematical genius and exuberant polymath Marcus du Sautoy plunges us into the world of artificial intelligence and algorithmic learning in this essential guide to the future of creativity. He considers the role of pattern and imitation in the creative process and sets out to investigate the programs and programmers—from Deep Mind and the Flow Machine to Botnik and WHIM—who are seeking to rival or surpass human innovation in gaming, music, art, and language. A thrilling tour of the landscape of invention, The Creativity Code explores the new face of creativity and the mysteries of the human code.

“As machines outsmart us in ever more domains, we can at least comfort ourselves that one area will remain sacrosanct and uncomputable: human creativity. Or can we?…In his fascinating exploration of the nature of creativity, Marcus du Sautoy questions many of those assumptions.”
Financial Times

“Fascinating…If all the experiences, hopes, dreams, visions, lusts, loves, and hatreds that shape the human imagination amount to nothing more than a ‘code,’ then sooner or later a machine will crack it. Indeed, du Sautoy assembles an eclectic array of evidence to show how that’s happening even now.”
The Times

Praise

  • As machines outsmart us in ever more domains, we can at least comfort ourselves that one area will remain sacrosanct and uncomputable: human creativity. Or can we? …In his fascinating exploration of the nature of creativity, Marcus du Sautoy questions many of those assumptions. The Oxford mathematician, who is as adept at explaining complex theories in prose as he is on television, argues that so much of what we consider to be creativity consists of super-smart synthesis rather than the flash of inspiration.

    —John Thornhill, Financial Times

Awards

  • 2020, Winner of the PROSE Awards

Author

  • Marcus du Sautoy is the Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford and the bestselling author of The Music of the Primes, Symmetry, and The Great Unknown. A trumpeter and member of an experimental theater group, he has written and presented over a dozen documentaries, including The Code and The Secret Rules of Modern Living: Algorithms. He also created the codes for Lauren Child’s Ruby Redfort mysteries. He has received the Berwick Prize, the Zeeman Medal, and the Royal Society’s Michael Faraday Prize, among other honors.

Book Details

  • 320 pages
  • 5-13/16 x 9 inches
  • Belknap Press

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