CREATIVITY AND COMPUTERS A VIEW THAT ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS WILL LIBERATE ARTISTS FROM ROUTINE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000400200008-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 12, 2004
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: June 14, 1966
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2005/01/12 : CIA-RDP88-01315R000400200008-1
NEW YORK TM
JUN 14 1966
might even enable him to pro-
vide specific instructions to
Creativity and Computers Performers that are superior to
the centuries-old symbols he
has used in his scores.
A View That Electronic Systems One does not speak in this
context of the composers who
Will Liberate Artists From Routine have been using electronic de-
vices as their very medium of
expression. But even these com-
posers have found that the ma-
By HOWARD TAUBMAN nipulation of circuits will not
Is there a future for the artist; Viewed as Opportunity insure art, which still requires
in a computerized world? This To Mr. Leonard the compu- an individual creative gift.
question will be very much on,ter is not a threat but an oppor- A Great Mystery
the minds of the participants;tunity. It offers the chance to The creative act, which occurs
in the P.E.N. Congress's roundieliminate the drudgery that for only in sthe humane brain, re-
table today on "The Writer in,! millenniums has consumed the mais one of, the great mys-
the Electronic Age," with better part of man's time and;teries. Who knows what amal-
Marshall MacLuhan as chair- energy, Since the computer is.gam of genes and environmen-
man. Most writers, composers not subject to emotional ups tal influences is needed to pro-
and painters know that the new, and downs, it has no fear ofrducean authentic artist? Who
machines are pro- routine. if it could experience can predict how unrelated im-
Critic aiferating, becom?? human emotions, it might, one pressions, emotions and
at ing miraculously, would guess, glory in its blind- thoughts fuse into. a creative
sophisticated and i:ng seed. idea? Who
can say for certain
Large being entrusted But it might also be de-i what combination of intuition,
with.a vast variety pressed. For no computer- drive, training, patience and
of complicated, not to say awe- or, to speak more broadly, no sensibility can bring that Idea
some, tasks. But many are sus- data system, which Includes to fruition on paper, canvas or
picious of the uses to which the means of collecting, storing, itone ?
new electronic marvels have computing, -comparing and dis- It is.Mr. Leonard's guess that
been put. They fear that an al-!playing, data-can initiate its ,a man listening to. a Mozart
most universally mechanized? own program. It has no means string quartet for relaxa-
automatic society means death!of being creative. But it can, tion and pleasure may very well,
to the things they value, in Mr. Leonard's judgment, re-,come away with a bridge to'
But there is no fear in lease hitherto unused and un-+
gene Leonard, a man of the dreamed. of potentialities! a slydiffe conception an mar-
new electronic age who cem: for creativity. He expresses his k tin eaeo or field, like scientific dis-
bines a philosophic bent with vision of a brace, new world of covery. ve y idea the -
a 1 be
thorough familiarity with tomorrow in this way: cBud,wa shatever the com-
d
computers and data systems. It -if we accept. the baste rem- abler and data systems will nh I
is his view that creativity, that ? Mr. to do in the future d at
ise, as I do, that all .human be- M, Leonard has unlimited faith
special gift given, only to man,'.ings who are in any way normal, in their undiscovered possibili-
will be needed more than ever;have generally untapped crea ties-they are not likely to be
as computers become. more tive potentialities, we can view capable of coping with nice
prevalent. It is his conviction] the coming devdlopment of the` questions of art or with such
that the artist, writer an new technology as the greatest other refinements of civiliza-
philosopher will be the mo_, achievement in man's history. ',
tion as virtue and dui
highly prized citizens of I think that if we In the United These are and will l
con-
world profoundly altered by th States begin to plan, exploit, - siv-
computer revolution. expand capitalize exclusive
for human creativity ofov(the ~ omputer h andodata
He helped to found and gulddin all dir'otfons, not merely systems, Mr. Leonard argues, is
the Digitronics Corporations technical but artistic, -terary, the liberation of man from a
which has made original con; musical, philosophical, socio- multiplicity of routine tasks.
{
tributions in, data systems. Budlogical and scientific; , we will Foi' creativity? Yes, for all
the day-to-day obligations of become a nation evermore in
management were not to his command of our environment:' Homers including the anung
taste. He preferred' to expert' A A computer, it might be ob- Homers who have the capacise
ment and think-and now doc.1sl served, can be programmed to- to the eh cr, batmeans would edomito
both in his Sands Point, L.I., da to write music in the style la and eedom t
home, where he has a small y do so. For the world will al-
home, laboratory. of Mozart, but the results are ways need artists and phil-
"e t l bound to be banal. There is no sosophers to articulate its val-
Ptiter and data syr way to instruct the machine to `ues and dream its unimaginable
terns are only machines," h. be inspired-to communicate a dreams,
says. They are capable at pros personal and unique sense of When the question with which
ent only of routine decisions anguish or ' ecstasy. Coilceiv- this article began was first put
Their functions are the creatioi ably a computer can be em to Mr. Leonard, his Instant re-
,of the human mind, not th iployed -to save a composer some sponse Was "Is there a future
computer mind. The computei, routine, time-consuming steps for has no mind:" in preparing a manuscript. It, for a crnnp? terized world with-
: out artists.
Approved For Release 2005/01/12 : CIA-RDP88-01315R000400200008-1