Free Tik-Tok by John Sladek Page B

articulation that it previously lacked.'
    "If I may paraphrase what I think is this process, I would guess that it is somewhat like map-making. Each of an artist's works explores and charts a territory adjacent to others, or at least connected to others, that have gone before or will come later. The territory may be there before the map, but it is so hazily known as to have no useful existence.
    "Suppose for example a painter produces two similar paintings—Rembrandt's self-portraits, say, or the naked and clothed Maja, or two views of Fujiyama. The two works together define a certain territory—perhaps the aesthetic space between them—which the painter now may understand is his to work within. Perhaps the first painting established his claim on this terra incognita and the second then goes on to push out the boundaries or merely goes over the details and improves the sharpness of the original map.
    "There are several kinds of assumptions we could make about the inner landscape thus being externalized, or externally represented. We could assume that the painting is in some way entirely planned and modelled or painted within the inner landscape first, and that the painter simply transfers his plan to canvas. Or we could assume that everything happens during the execution of the real objective painting—the inner painting goes on at the same time. Or we could assume a kind of two-way traffic between the inner state and the outer painting, so that both reach finally some stability or stasis, at which point the painter decides his painting is finished.
    "It can also be argued that what obtains for two paintings by one painter could obtain for two paintings by two painters, provided that they share enough common ground in their belief-states or ways of relating their work to the world. Hence schools or movements might be considered to be founded on partially shared inner landscapes.
    "Until recently, however, all such assumptions about the relationship between the objective work and the subjective mental state have had little chance of testing. Now, the appearance of a robot who (or which) seems to paint in the same way humans paint, offers some fascinating possibilities. Unlike the human, the robot's mental state ought to be accessible to outsiders—at least in principle. In principle, then, it should be possible to probe that state in such a way as to be able to compare it, stage by stage, with the work that is actually being painted."

    I saw that all the others were awaiting my reaction. What I felt, though I wasn't showing it, was some anxiety. I decided to expel it in a joke.
    "Probing, you say? I hope nobody's actually going to plunge a screwdriver into my head!" Moderate laughter.
    Nancy, a pretty, chubby girl, showed a dimple. "Not at all. I was only proposing a thought experiment, not an experiment on your thoughts."
    "Anyway, imagine philosophers being that practical," said Keith, a thin boy in a wheelchair. "Never heard of any philosophers settling anything by simply picking up a screwdriver."
    Riley asked for more questions, either of Nancy or me. A morose, pimply boy named Dean spoke first.
    "Um, aren't we kind of moving too fast here? I mean um, Nancy's assuming the robot produces art before she finds out um what producing art is. I mean um couldn't it be just um a human activity? So that the canon of what is acceptable art has to be stuff that is the product of the human um imagination? Because in that case it's begging a question."
    Nancy shrugged. "I guess in part the canon of what is acceptable has to be what critics accept, and they accept robot art. This doesn't mean you're wrong, Dean, though, because maybe robots are blessed with what we call human imagination. So ask Tik-Tok."
    I threw up my hands. "This is all kind of fast-moving for me. I don't know whether to call my work art or not, but I feel there's a certain—what can I call it? Human element?—a certain human element in it. At least I hope