Using AI as a tool for creativity
Life and Art from FT Weekend
Forhecz Topher
4.6 • 601 Ratings
🗓️ 10 May 2024
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
One of the hallmarks of humanity is our ability to pass down cultural information and knowledge over thousands of years. Philosopher and author Martin Puchner says the lifeblood of culture lies in how we take pieces of information and combine them into new ideas and ways of inhabiting the world. Martin talks with Lilah about how that culture is formed, and how he sees the emergence of generative AI as a new tool for remixing cultural ideas from human history. This conversation was recorded in front of a live audience at the FT Weekend Festival in Washington, DC.
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We love hearing from you. Lilah is on Instagram @lilahrap and we’re on X @lifeandartpod. You can email the show at [email protected].
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Links (all FT links get you past the paywall):
– Martin’s custom GPTs where you can chat with Socrates or the Buddha, and more: https://www.martinpuchner.com/custom-gpts-and-online-education.html
– Martin’s book on culture: https://www.martinpuchner.com/culture-story-of-us.html
– The FT’s John Thornhill on Martin’s work: https://on.ft.com/3JQEf29
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Special FT subscription offers for Life and Art podcast listeners, from 50% off a digital subscription to a $1/£1/€1 trial, are here: http://ft.com/lifeandart
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Original music by Metaphor Music. Mixing and sound design by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Life and Art from FT Weekend. I'm Lila Raptopoulos. |
| 0:06.5 | Today we're doing something a little different. I'm bringing you a conversation that I had recently |
| 0:10.8 | on stage at the US FT Weekend Festival in Washington, D.C., about AI and creativity. |
| 0:17.6 | It's with the philosopher and Harvard professor Martin Pookner, who recently wrote a book called Culture, the Story of Us, from cave art to K-pop. |
| 0:26.7 | Martin's book is great. It tries to pinpoint very big picture what culture is exactly, what it includes, how it changes, and how people remix or riff on or recycle the past to create more culture. |
| 0:40.8 | Writing this book made Martin very interested actually in generative AI, because AI systems are |
| 0:47.0 | trained on human culture. So how will AI remix and recycle it? And how do we make the best use of it? |
| 0:55.9 | Martin and I had an exceptional time on stage. It was really great fun. The audience questions were extremely fun too. And I hope you |
| 1:01.3 | enjoy it. Martin, welcome. It's such a pleasure to have you. Thanks for having me, Lana. |
| 1:06.2 | Thanks for being here. So we're going to talk about AI. But first, I would love to go really big picture and set the foundation for people here. So we're going to talk about AI, but first I would love to go really big picture and set |
| 1:11.6 | the foundation for people here. |
| 1:13.6 | I was asked a question recently that I realized I didn't have an answer to, which is |
| 1:18.6 | what is culture? |
| 1:20.6 | It's in my job title, so it was particularly embarrassing, and so I'm going to ask that to you. |
| 1:26.6 | One, why is that such a hard question |
| 1:28.9 | to answer? And two, what is culture? Okay. It is a big question. And I guess since my publisher |
| 1:35.7 | and its infinite wisdom decided to call the book Culture, I do owe you and others an answer. So here's |
| 1:42.3 | my attempt. I think it's essentially the history of meaning-making |
| 1:46.0 | activity. And so may be helpful to think of it in contrast to know-how. So know-how is technical knowledge, |
| 1:53.8 | scientific knowledge that we humans have accumulated to intervene in nature, to change nature. |
| 2:00.9 | I think history of culture, arts and humanities, religion is a history of no why. |
| 2:07.5 | So precisely that ongoing struggle that we humans are engaged in to think about why we are on earth, |
... |
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