Michael Mateas: Semiotic Considerationsin an Artificial Intelligence-Based Art Practice

In my work I engage in a hybrid practice combining artificial intelligence (AI) research and art marking, a practice I call Expressive AI. Computers are fundamentally meaning machines - the long chains of meaningless causal processes that comprise computation can be linked to culturally meaningful signs such that computers can participate in processes of signification. AI consists of coupled rhetorical and technical strategies for structuring computational processes. Artists can consciously manipulate these rhetorical and technical strategies so as to build machines with powerful authorial affordances for crafting audience experiences.