For the first issue in its new weekly print edition, the London Standard has run an experiment in the form of an AI-generated review of the National Gallery’s Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers exhibition, written in the style of late art critic Brian Sewell.
Experiments of this nature typically aim to link real-world observations to general theories. For experiments to successfully confirm or reject big ideas, they need a clear design and purpose. Little has been shared about the design of the Standard’s experiment and details about the training data and algorithms used are unclear. But what about the purpose?
Is this a tentative exploration of the role of the art critic? Does it aim to kindle a broader social dialogue about those human jobs that are replaceable and those that are not? Is it an ethical experiment on how technology might help us deal with the loss of cherished human lives? Or just another Turing test to judge how far from human intelligence AI still is?
