How Letting Go of Objectives can Help Creativity and Discovery

Lecture at RISD (Rhode Island School of Design)

The title: How Letting Go of Objectives can Help Creativity and Discovery

This talk by Evolutionary Computer Scientist Dr. Kenneth O. Stanley will examine the negative effect of explicit objectives on creative discovery and the liberation that is possible when we abandon their false security. Although a common first step in many creative endeavors is to set objectives, recent experiments in the field of evolutionary computation (an area of artificial intelligence) have begun to reveal new insight into... why objectives often inadvertently damage the very process of discovery they aim to guide. In particular, especially in ambitious projects, objectives can blind us to essential stepping stones on the road to long-term innovation. Through several experiments in a process called interactive evolution and with a computer algorithm called "novelty search," this talk will expose the delicate nature of promising stepping stones and contemplate why reaching them sometimes may require abandoning the tantalizing idea that great works require great objectives.

The talk will be followed by a panel where Dr. Stanley will be accompanied by RISD professors who are also experts in the process of search to answer your questions.

This lecture is currently being digitized. In the meanwhile, here's a link to a different version of the talk (a bit more geared toward a Technical Audience) without the Q+A panel, that we might want to check out.

http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Searching-Without-Objectives