Smart Combinations
I admit I have always liked combinations. Commutations, arrangements and pure mathematical stuff. If you feel like reading there is more on my personal blog: A puerile-aesthetics theory of the permutational diversity for me (in Romanian).
I spent 40 minutes yesterday reading ads invented with TheAdGenerator. I came across this thing on TechCrunch. A kid’s degree’s project. One takes semantic structures used in ads of our days, places the values of the moment, decorates it with pics taken from Flickr – chosen based on the similar tags and one has the ad. Now honestly speaking, they are not all good, but at least 100 per minute may be generated (that depends also on the connection). Can a copyrighter brag with such a prolificity?
What does that have to do with what we are doing? Well, first of all there is a nice example of algorithmic of what may seem indefinable – human creativity at work. Of course, human creativity means much more in this area – coherent strategy, positioning etc, but we can imagine that after these have been defined, a computer can elaborate 1000 propositions using the brand values selected, from which the discussion can start.
Second of all, it is a clear example of commodity brought by the technology – which before seemed a very rare thing can now be transformed into a routine action. And then you have to come up with a new secret sauce and other twenty condiments. Luckily Gödel proved that there are non-algorithmic zones of mathematics. When it will all be algorithmised, we should start inventing new theorems. BTW, a pretty cool stuff about the “mathematical ideas mining” is in Greg Egan’s Diaspora. Genial author! A must read for info geeks.
PS. There is also a blog of the generators. And there is not much time left before a generator of generators appears. Wait, can it be invented a generator of foods, for instance? Select different ingredients and random condiments, after a table of similarities, of taste-associations etc and then generate a finite number of steps (thermical treatments, blending, chopping, boiling, grilling, freezing) and there you have the finite product. With three “solution horizons”: edible dish, tasty dish and divine dish.