I’m thrilled to share that John Maeda, a personal hero of mine, agreed to let me interview him about his new book How to Speak Machine: Computational Thinking For the Rest of Us which, at the time of this interview, has been out just 24 hours. I think most folks who read Artnome are already very familiar with John, but by way of a short introduction, John is an accomplished engineer, artist, and designer who served as associate director at MIT Media Lab, president at RISD, and currently serves as chief experience officer at Publicis Sapient. John’s art, writing, and presentations have shaped my own thinking on art, design, technology, and diversity over the last two decades, and it is a real honor to share our conversation below:
Jason Bailey: Hi John, thanks for writing your new book How to Speak Machine and for the opportunity to ask you some questions about it! As an artist who grew up computationally challenged in a family of engineers (and then worked for two decades in tech in a non-technical capacity), you have been a personal hero of mine for a long time. I believe your new book takes some really important steps in helping people understand the language of computation which is increasingly governing the world we live in despite only a small number of people speaking it with any fluency.
John Maeda: Thanks. I have enjoyed reading your writings and now hearing about your background, it makes sense to me how you mix computational fluency with the arts. It's a rare capability -- but I've noticed that it's slowly increasing. Yes. The book is in reaction to realizing how obscure the computational world really is to someone who never spent a long time immersed in how the machines work. So it's not their fault to be disengaged because the hurdle to really comprehending what's happening in the invisible consciousness of the cloud today is simply hard to believe.
JB: I was pleasantly surprised to see how much space in the book you dedicated to talking about art and design. My first question is about your personal distinction between art and design. I noticed you don’t really spell out a clear differentiation between art and design in the book, but you talk about them very differently. You speak of art and artists with reverence, and I appreciate and share your reverence. A few quotes from the book:
Art is the science of enjoying life
An artist’s perspective keeps you humanly curious
The earth without art is just eh
The question inducing power of art
Artists excel at making unlikely connections all the time
As a reader, it feels like you treat art almost like an antidote to a life that can swing too far towards tech.
JM: I have a terrible short-term memory. So as a habit I try to remind myself what is important by writing it down. My hope is that when I come back to it later, I might remember to take it seriously. LOL. The arts are high on my list.
JB: By contrast, you describe the temple of design as being a bit more fickle and commercial, with a handful of superstars dictating new ideas that quickly cycle into and out of fashion.
JM: I would lob a similar criticism about the contemporary arts world, actually.
JB: You also suggest that this model of the sole genius or design star crafting a finished product gets disrupted in a computational world where designs are always in flux, never finished, and informed by continuous feedback from users. The quote that hammered your opinion of traditional design home for me was:
“The standards that elite institutions uphold as the cultural compass for the classical design world are underwritten by subjective decisions and invisible wealth networks that facilitate what gets remembered vs forgotten. The temple of design’s narrative of the genius designer is not a reliable path to success. It’s seductive, but it’s stupid.”
Do you think there is a clear difference between art and design, and, if so, what do you see as the main differences in how they are impacted by an increasingly computational and automated world?
JM: I've always thought of design as making solutions. And art is making questions. Both art and design have access to computation. And so it's possible to make different kinds of solutions and different kinds of questions that were not previously possible.
JB: Will art, like design, shift away from the idea of the sole genius and move toward continuous development and group design, or is the idea of the individual genius too critical to preserving the “question-inducing power of art”?
JM: I think both art and design are grounded in the idea of the lone genius. It's a romantic idea. I lived it for quite a long time. And then I came to realize that teamwork is much more interesting. Should art be created by teams? If the questions to ponder are really big, then yes.
JB: My second question is about artificial intelligence and machine learning. These are hot topics these days, and I think the public has a lot of fear and anxiety based on misinformation they have received from movies and the media about AI/ML being sentient and taking over our jobs.
JM: I agree. And a mood of fear gives the perfect opportunity for politicians and other kinds of leaders to exert power over others with the promise of protecting them. That is concerning to me.
JB: I would have had these same concerns about AI/ML if I hadn’t spent four years at a machine learning startup seeing how difficult it is to get AI/ML to automate even the most basic tasks. So I don’t blame people for being afraid, it seems like there needs to be more education.
JM: I agree. Unfortunately, it's really hard to understand how computation works. It took me many years, just like you. I was wondering if I could make some kind of shortcut. How To Speak Machine is my attempt to do so.
JB: I was thrilled to read your quote from Andrew Ng early in the book, “If you're trying to understand AI's near-term impact, don't think ‘sentience.’ Instead think ‘automation on steroids,’” which aligns with how most experts I know would describe AI/ML.
JM: That's my favorite quote. I'm glad you liked it, as well.
JB: However, later in the book when talking about exponential advancements, much of the focus is on the singularity. You talk about Vernor Vinge’s prediction of the singularity ending the human era and Ray Kurzweil’s predictions about machines outpacing humans, all of which make people very afraid of AI/ML.
JM: Many technologists don't believe in the singularity. I hesitated to include it in How To Speak Machine. But because the word gets used so often, I wanted to talk about it in the context of how the word started to become used.
JB: Do you think people are right to be afraid of AI/ML?
JM: I think to be afraid of what comes in the future isn't a great way to live. I would reframe it as people should understand what's coming -- which should make them less worried about not knowing what's happened. If you have a general idea of what's happening, you at least have a chance at living with it, or ideally, overcoming it.
JB: Is it a matter of realizing that what we have today is not scary, but it could get scary further down the line?
JM: I think that being scared and more scared is not a good algorithm for life. But if it motivates you to change, and change for the better, then that's a good thing.
JB: You also suggest that when AI does bad things, we humans will be to blame. Does this mean we should be more afraid of humans than of AI?
JM: The beauty of critical thinking is having the power to ask questions instead of just responding to everything that happens. Being concerned about the humans who are using AI at scale deserves our critical thinking.
JB: How can we help to educate people so they can essentially know the right time to freak out (if ever) and how freaked out they should be?
JM: I am not sure. I thought that it would be good to at least start exposing more people to how computation works. How To Speak Machine is not my first attempt to do so. In 2005 I had an exhibition at the Cartier Foundation called Nature which was seven short animated films I made to depict the universe inside the computer. The fact that nobody knows about them today means that I failed. LOL. So I guess I'll keep trying.
JB: As an extension of the previous question, there is a lot of really interesting art being made using machine learning as a tool which is unfortunately being overshadowed by public discourse fixated around a false narrative of machines replacing artists and making art on their own. As a result, we also have some pretty silly “art” projects with paintbrush-wielding robots wearing wigs grabbing headlines about robots/machines replacing artists.
JM: I enjoy seeing all the work being done out there. Even if it might seem minor, sometimes I think that a bigger outcome can only be understood when we look across all the pieces, no matter how small they might seem.
JB: The advice you give in your book is to “be what AI cannot do.” I believe AI/ML is good for artists because creativity and soft skills will be the hardest to automate, and this will put a premium on skills that artists excel at. What do you think of the art that is being created using machine learning today, for example, using GANs?
JM: I'm excited by it all. I've learned so much by browsing what is being made out there.
JB: Do you think artists should be worried about being replaced by machines, and, if so, when?
JM: I think artists should avoid being worried. Being insecure is fine. But not worried. Otherwise you cannot inspire others.
JB: Or alternatively, do you believe that AI/ML will highlight artists’ unique skills and increase their value?
JM: My guess is that AI will remove a lot of the nonsense work that we think is important, and allow us to focus on what is truly interesting.
JB: Another aspect of the book that I appreciate is how you tie humanity back to computing. You do this in the book by pointing out that humans were the first computers, that concepts like recursion and fractals can be found in nature, and by pointing out that “computation has a shared ancestor: us.” As we live in an increasingly computationally driven world with inhabitants that do not yet “speak machine,” how can we help put people at ease and feel less disconnected?
JM: I wish I knew the answer to that. I guess my answer is to continue to think critically about what we do. And to think critically about what I do. If we stay connected to each other, and we can stay connected to ourselves, then we are aware. And present. And then we are no longer disconnected.
JB: Obviously writing a book like yours is a helpful step, but are there other ways we can move in this direction?
JB: I'm glad I wrote the book so I didn't have to think about these things anymore. And now every day I'm just trying to move things in a direction that I believe is important. We can all do that in whatever line of work we are in.
JB: What role, if any, do you think artists can play in helping society to become more comfortable in its own computational skin?
JM: Artists who like to say that computers do not matter can often do so because they are usually independently wealthy enough and do not need to be relevant. For those artists who have less privilege, there's no better time than now to take advantage of a medium that has such potential. So go learn computation deeply.
JB: Last question. In following the arc of your career, I see a theme of wanting to help people better understand computation so that it feels less alien and less intimidating. I see this with Design By Numbers, the programming tool you designed to teach less technical people how programming works, and now, with How to Speak Machine, where you try to explain the basics of programming and computation in words. Do you see this as being one of your life’s missions?
JM: No. I don't think I ever set out consciously to do whatever I do. I try to be useful in the moment. That moment feels like right now with respect to computation.
JB: What did you hope to accomplish in book format that maybe you could not have achieved with DBN or through teaching and lecturing?
JM: Like everyone, I work to be relevant. Being relevant means being fully open to how whatever you think is right could now be wrong. From a timing perspective, I think that How To Speak Machine is not too early and not too late, and by putting all this thinking in book form, I don't have to teach or lecture about anything. Instead, I can tell someone to simply read the book. And I can go back to work to try to stay relevant by bringing in new thoughts that I don't know yet. LOL.
JB: Thanks again for writing this book, I will be recommending it to folks for a long time!
JM: Wow! Thanks -- that means a lot to me coming from you.