One view on novelty is that it’s a mirage. Novelty is ‘just synthesis of existing work, plus some randomness.’
I don’t think that’s correct. I think true novelty is more subtle than that. Yes sometimes novel artforms or scientific ideas are about noisily mixing existing ideas. Does it describe all forms of novelty?
A reductio ad absurdum of the novelty-as-mirage point of view is that all artforms that have appeared since the dawn of time are simply noised versions of cavepaintings. This seems absurd.
Consider AlphaGO. Does AlphaGO just noisily mix human experts? No, alphaGO works on a different principle and I would venture strictly outcompetes anything based on averaging or smoothing over human experts.
AlphaGO is based on a different principle than averaging over existing data. Instead, AlphaGO starts with an initial guess on what good play looks like, perhaps imitated from previous plays. It then plays out to a long horizons and prunes those strategies that did poorly and upscales those strategies that did well. It iteratively amplifies, refines and distilles. I strongly suspect that approximately this modus operandi underlies much of human creativity as well.
True novelty is based on both the synthesis and refinement of existing work.
Creativity is RL, converting work into closing the generation-discrimination gap wherever it’s found (or laboriously created by developing good taste). The resulting generations can be novelty-worthy, imitating them makes it easier to close the gap, reducing the need for creativity.
Is true Novelty a Mirage?
One view on novelty is that it’s a mirage. Novelty is ‘just synthesis of existing work, plus some randomness.’
I don’t think that’s correct. I think true novelty is more subtle than that. Yes sometimes novel artforms or scientific ideas are about noisily mixing existing ideas. Does it describe all forms of novelty?
A reductio ad absurdum of the novelty-as-mirage point of view is that all artforms that have appeared since the dawn of time are simply noised versions of cavepaintings. This seems absurd.
Consider AlphaGO. Does AlphaGO just noisily mix human experts? No, alphaGO works on a different principle and I would venture strictly outcompetes anything based on averaging or smoothing over human experts.
AlphaGO is based on a different principle than averaging over existing data. Instead, AlphaGO starts with an initial guess on what good play looks like, perhaps imitated from previous plays. It then plays out to a long horizons and prunes those strategies that did poorly and upscales those strategies that did well. It iteratively amplifies, refines and distilles. I strongly suspect that approximately this modus operandi underlies much of human creativity as well.
True novelty is based on both the synthesis and refinement of existing work.
Creativity is RL, converting work into closing the generation-discrimination gap wherever it’s found (or laboriously created by developing good taste). The resulting generations can be novelty-worthy, imitating them makes it easier to close the gap, reducing the need for creativity.