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Intelligent Beauty – Man vs AI

@drteowanlin What do you think? New podcast up 👆🏻 Ep 83: Beauty is Alive Can AI win in the game of beauty? When AlphaGo, a computer program based on deep learning networks, developed to play the board game Go, beat the reigning world champion Lee Sedol, alarm bells went off. Is AI now on track to replace, and even, dominate the human race? Lee famously stated that they were “an entity that cannot be defeated”, a haunting statement that should set us thinking. In this podcast episode, I reveal my opinion that the singular characteristic that sets the human race apart from the most life-like automata is one that has much to do with our ability to perceive beauty. And perhaps, the most critical in our quest to become beautiful. #beautypodcastrecommendations #scienceofbeauty #intelligentbeauty #learnontiktok #learningisfun #beautytok ♬ original sound – By Dr.TWL – Dermatologist Skincare Dr.TWL
Ep 83: Intelligent Beauty, The Race Against AI

Can AI win in the game of beauty? When AlphaGo, a computer program based on deep learning networks, developed to play the board game Go, beat the reigning world champion Lee Sedol, alarm bells went off. Is AI now on track to replace, and even, dominate the human race? Lee famously stated that they were “an entity that cannot be defeated”, a haunting statement that should set us thinking. In this podcast episode, I reveal my opinion that the singular characteristic that sets the human race apart from the most life-like automata is one that has much to do with our ability to perceive beauty, i.e. intelligent beauty. And perhaps, the most critical in our quest to become beautiful.

Intelligent beauty isn’t about golden ratios

The objective, scientific study of beauty must not rely on singular purported assumptions. Such as the golden ratio which the field of medical aesthetics has glorified in an overly simplistic manner. That disregards decades of research done by psychologists and philosophers on the complex phenomenon of the human perception of beauty. I will not delve into how it has come to be so. But as a practitioner myself, I consider myself ignorant for once thinking myself wise on this subject matter.

@drteowanlin This was how TV looked like when I first started putting on makeup head over to my latest podcast show Girls With Long Hair where I share my life long love affair with beauty #retromakeup #drtwl #beautytok #beautypodcast #beautytips #dermatologist #dermatologist @Dior ♬ som original – Italo Spinelli

Coherence and cognition at the heart of intelligent beauty

I am discussing important findings here which must account for at least a part of our dissection. Beauty, the divine mystery. Whether you believe in God or not affects whether you perceive Nature’s complexity as evidence of intelligent design of random chaos. That somehow eventually you evolved to co-exist with. And per chance, sometimes found beauty in. Wait, does this even make sense? Because we do know from published research that in the context of beauty perception, humans need to find logic. A phenomenon known as coherence which gives meaning to the subject in question. That is something to think about.

Intelligent Beauty on Dr.TWL TV

Discover all about intelligent beauty on Dr.TWL TV, a series of podcast shows on Spotify 

Living beauty, the innate preferences of Intelligent beauty 

In addition, there is another type of preference which psychologists have termed biophilia (Fromm, 1965; Kaplan, 1995; Wilson, 1984). This explains the tendency for humans to seek out nature and living organisms. Outlining our preference for living things. Think about that. Apparently, we are coded in a way that we somehow should not desire to love a perfectly sculpted robot or a beautiful corpse.

Artificial intelligence can win a game of strategy against the best human, as AlphaGo did with Lee Sedol. But can AI win in the game of beauty? If physical attributes are the sole determinant of beauty, we should find ourselves equally attracted to a beautiful life-like mannequin as we do a human. If it is merely auditory speech that marks the difference between a living person and a life-like replica of one, then we should not be able to pick up differences between the 2. Technology has now enabled high quality reproductions of both visual and auditory characteristics of a human.

As much as we are studying the subject of beauty in the world of art. We must recognise that it only tells us as much as this. That it is a psychological phenomenon that is associated with visual characteristics. Traditional representative art is a 2-D or if it is in the form of sculpture, it is in 3-D. Living things however are not just automata. A term derived form a Greek word which means “self-acting, self-willed, self-moving”, Characteristics  that creators of human like robots would like to believe they are empowering their creations with.

Dr.TWL TV on Spotify

Intelligent beauty is very much about being alive 

I have been thinking about this for some time now about what makes a living thing alive. From the perspective of a medical doctor and scientist, I think it must be this. The presence of physiological processes that allow the self-driven functioning of all that is expected from a living organism. When someone is brain dead for example, they are considered “alive” only because of the machines we use to drive processes that are needed to keep them breathing. When we turn these off, they lose the ability to maintain these processes essential to life. However, such a definition is not the most ideal to me. The reason is because it is rather inaccessible to the layperson, who simply associates the cessation of breathing with death itself. 

Robotic intelligence that mimics life

Can robots be created to generate movements and sounds to mimic breathing? As the Hebrews and many other religions/cultures believe, it is the Breath of God, Ruach. That was breathed into man that transformed him into a living breathing being. It is also the Hebrew word for spirit, breath or wind. When spoken, the word engages one’s breath and lungs. When a person dies, this breath leaves.

I distinctly remember as a junior house officer, the term for an intern doctor, the very first time I was called to sign off a certificate of death for a terminally ill patient. I had been making my rounds all day long and checking in on this patient who was put on a DIL list. DIL  means they are dangerously ill, expected to pass on anytime. When the nurse finally called me later that evening to certify the patient’s passing, I still found myself in a strange moment. 

Intelligent beauty – a matter of life and death

In my own head, as I tried to decipher the physiology and psychology of this phenomenon known as death. What had just occurred was just inexplicable. I think primarily because I was surprised at myself, what else was I expecting? Clearly, I was familiar with the physiologic parameters of death. That was not the issue. But there was something else that greatly puzzled me, which was I felt that someone had left the body.  It didn’t make sense even though I am and was already a theist. Because my secular medical training had so ingrained in me that death was mainly a physiologic moment. I will never forget that.

The beauty podcast exploring the science of intelligent beauty

I hope this episode got you thinking about the importance of the subject we are discussing on this podcast. The Science of Beauty isn’t just about the decoding of what makes us attractive and more beautiful. it is a topic that requires us to first acknowledge. That being alive, that is the most beautiful thing of all.

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