Quello che non si può misurare non esiste

venerdì, 12 giugno 2015 — borislimpopo

Un articolo di Ahmed Elgammal e Babak Saleh descrive un algoritmo per confrontare opere d’arte visiva e misurarne la “creatività” o quanto meno l’originalità e la capacità di influenzare altri artisti.

Qui trovate l’articolo originario in .pdf: Quantifying Creativity in Art Networks.

 

Qui, invece, un estratto dell’articolo comparso su Quartz l’11 giugno 2015: Picasso = Genius: This algorithm can judge “creativity” in art as well as the experts.

Art is seen as unquantifiable. Great paintings are creative forces that transcend their brush strokes, colors, and compositions. They can’t be reduced to mere data, analyzed, and ranked by their creativity. Two computer scientists at Rutgers University respectfully disagree.

Ahmed Elgammal and Babak Saleh created an algorithm that they say measures the originality and influence of artworks by using sophisticated visual analysis to compare each piece to older and newer artwork. They worked from the premise that the most creative art was that which broke most from the past, and then inspired the greatest visual shifts in the works that followed.

They did it by looking specifically at qualities such as texture, color, lines, movement, harmony, and balance. “These artistic concepts can, more or less, be quantified by today’s computer vision technology,” they write in their paper “Quantifying Creativity in Art Networks” (pdf).

Their experiment—which involved two datasets totalling more than 62,000 paintings—was entirely automated. They gave the computer no information about art history. Yet what they found was that their algorithm often came to same conclusions as art experts. “In most cases the results of the algorithm are pieces of art that art historians indeed highlight as innovative and influential,” the authors wrote.

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Ornette Coleman Quartet – 8 maggio 2005

giovedì, 11 giugno 2015 — borislimpopo

RIP, con affetto e gratitudine

Sbagliando s'impera

In una tiepida domenica sera di maggio, in una pausa di un lavoro che mi aveva impegnato per settimane senza pause nemmeno nei week-end e che avrebbe continuato a impegnarmi ancora per una quindicina di giorni, lo stacco di questo gioiello di concerto, cui sono andato, ancora una volta, con mio figlio. Auditorium Parco della musica, sala Santa Cecilia, Roma.

Il jazz, almeno per me, è stata una conquista lenta e graduale, una manovra d’accerchiamento a tenaglia, partita da un lato dal rock (via il Miles Davis della prima metà degli anni Settanta, per capirsi, e i Weather Report), dall’altro dal blues (via Il popolo del blues di LeRoj Jones – poi islamizzatosi come Amiri Baraka – e il blues-rock degli inglesi, tutti figli dei Bluesbreakers di John Mayall). Ornette Coleman, in questa metafora, è stata una delle roccaforti espugnate da ultimo: ho e ho molto amato…

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Un mercato per i rifugiati nell’Unione europea?

martedì, 9 giugno 2015 — borislimpopo

Peter H. Schuck, professore della Yale Law School e autore di Why Government Fails So Often, and How It Can Do Better, propone in un articolo sul New York Times di oggi 9 giugno 2015 [Creating a Market for Refugees in Europe – NYTimes.com] di creare un mercato per comprare e vendere le quote nazionali di rifugiati che l’Unione europea si accinge ad assegnare a ogni Stato membro, analogamente a quanto già avviene in materia ambientale.

Voi che ne pensate?

A scheme allocating protection burdens according to each state’s capacities, much as the European Union is likely to adopt, is essential. A regional authority should calculate each state’s fair share using objective criteria such as gross domestic product, population and land mass. (The formula might also grant credits for past protection efforts.) It should also estimate how many refugees need protection, temporary or permanent, and how many of those can legally qualify for it — mere economic migrants cannot.

Here’s my proposed innovation: The agency should create and regulate a market in which states can buy and sell all or part of their protection quota obligations. Both the agency and the selling state must enforce international standards to ensure that the receiving state protects the human rights of those it agrees to accept.

Just as cap-and-trade schemes enhance environmental protection, this market would maximize the number of refugees protected by exploiting differences in states’ resources, politics, geography and attitudes toward newcomers. A more ethnically homogeneous or xenophobic state might eagerly pay a high price (in cash, credit, commodities, political support, development assistance or some other valuable) to more refugee-friendly states to assume its burden, rather than having to bring them in-country.

Such payments already take place, in a way: The United States and other countries sometimes pay other states to harbor immigrants; Australia just agreed to give Cambodia $32 million to do so.

Almost by definition, such a market would produce more protection than the status quo does, while ensuring that each state does its share in one form or another and that human rights are respected.

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