Philosophy Seminars - Digital Technologies, Critique and Society II
“Artificial Intelligence and the Possibility of Creativity”
Time: 15:00 – 16.30
Speaker: Öznur Karakaş
Moderator: Emre Şan
The relationship between artificial intelligence and creativity is not merely a matter of technical capacity or aesthetic production, but also invites us to rethink the tension between embodiment and abstraction and/or symbolic thought. While human creativity is nourished by bodily senses, experience, and the relationship established with the world, it also transcends these contexts through abstraction, creating universal, formal, and re-arrangeable modes of thought. The possibility of creativity emerges precisely in the tension between embodied existence and the openness of abstract reason.
When viewed as a processor lacking a body, artificial intelligence might seem not to possess the essential conditions of creative subjectivity. However, the intensity of its abstraction capacity can open AI to different forms of creativity: reconfiguring patterns, combining forms in unexpected relationships, and producing combinations that exceed the limits of human perception. From this perspective, artificial intelligence can be considered a collaborator that derives from a source different from the sensori-motor basis provided by the human body, but one that can still participate in the creative process.
The seminar will focus on the following questions: Is creativity an indispensable extension of embodied experience, or is it a faculty that can detach from bodily constraints through the capacity for abstraction? To what extent can artificial intelligence participate in creative production? Do AI-generated artistic works expand the boundaries of creative possibility, or do they merely offer simulations or the average outputs of collective production?
In this seminar, we will address the philosophical debate on creativity through the relationship between embodiment and the capacity for abstraction, reflecting on whether artificial intelligence can be seen as an accomplice that reveals the radical possibilities of abstraction. The future of creativity lies in the possibility of re-establishing this dynamic relationship between body and abstraction, between human and machine.
Öznur Karakaş is a faculty member in the Department of English New Media and Communication at Üsküdar University. She is also one of the founding editors of the digital magazine called Terrabayt. She completed her master's degree in philosophy at Galatasaray University, followed by the Europhilosophie: Contemporary French and German Thought master's program at the universities of Toulouse and Charles University in Prague. She completed her doctoral education in the interdisciplinary internet studies (IN3) program at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. She worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Gender Studies at Uppsala University and the Department of Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Her work focuses on e-sciences/e-infrastructure, science and technology studies, gender, philosophy, critical data studies, and new media and communication.
* The event will take place at the Sakıp Sabancı Museum, Conference Hall.
* The seminar will be held in Turkish. To attend this seminar, you can create your registration by using the "Register" button on the page and receive your free event invitation. Registrations will open 1 week before the event date (18.01.2025, at 15:00) and the "Register" button will become visible. Participation is limited to a quota of 80 people.
* Participants who have completed the event registration and received their invitation are kindly requested to be at the venue at least 15 minutes before the event. The doors will be closed at the event starting time.