Altered Minds

My talk will show our latest research on the remarkable effects of the psychedelic drugs psilocybin and LSD on the human brain. We have used several different types of neuro-imaging techniques and revealed that these drugs produce as unique brain signature. This explains the special form of consciousness found in the psychedelic state and may help explain their clinical efficacy in disorders such as addiction and depression.

The aim of The Painting Fool project is to build an automated painter which is taken seriously as a creative artist in its own right, one day. In the talk, I’ll describe the motivations and history of this Computational Creativity project. Then I’ll focus on how we have implemented abilities which capture skilful, appreciative, imaginative, accountable, moody and intentional behaviours, and how the software learns to be better. I’ll leave it up to the audience to decide whether or not they would describe The Painting Fool as ‘creative’, and we can talk about what that word means to everyone.