Whats the balance between human spontaneity versus automation?
Robots, at least of the industrial sort, are as far from spontaneity as you can imagine. Their every aspect is programmed and arranged, and therefore repeats endlessly, perfectly. But at the moment, a human — bionic, augmented and tireless — brings a lot to this party that a robot brings very expensively. A human brings judgment of the results and the process, of perception of quality, and an incredible manipulative quality we all have, courtesy of evolution. How do you know when the usage of an invention becomes art? When you are moved by what is done with it; when you are moved in the ways art can move you. The invention of the violin became art when people learned how to play it. And curiously enough, the Steadicam is the same. It is an instrument, strangely enough. By the time people learned to play the Steadicam well, they did things that had an emotional effect on people. That was exciting. You suggest that invention should be part of every job description. How do we make inven
