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15 October 2015

Collectible Skills: Machine Mind

This piece of art was digital from start to finish, I created this digital sketch of a (grossly inaccurate, I'm sure) brain:

I shaded it in gray with sharp-cut edges:

Then, using the shaded image for a reference, I sketched over it a series of gears, pieces, and wires:

I combined the two and cut out a more appropriate shape:

Next, I painted the shaded version, adding some texture:

To finish the image I color-corrected it and added a background--keeping in mind that this card would use a frosted effect and thus needed an appropriate aspect-ratio:

Finally, I carefully composed the final card in Inkscape, repeatedly fine-tuning the glows and borders:

Text:

"The holy grail of programming, the ultimate pandora's box of all science: the Artificial Intelligence.

"Is it even possible? Is the brain simply a network of electricity and chemistry, or does it operate via quantum mechanical principles?

"We may know, someday."

The resulting card met all my expectations. Moreover, I found I needed to spend very little time in the composing stage, since I have now completed the layout template for every card level. (The last level 0 card was "Flight".)

Well, specifically, I have completed the layout for levels 0, 1, and 2; but I doubt I will ever need level 3 (maybe for some programming language), and level 4 is a joke. :-P

I do have ideas about artificial intelligence. The subject fascinates me, and I generally consider it impossible. Nevertheless, I will keep dreaming. Who knows? Perhaps one of my dreams will lead to a workable piece of code and transform the world. No? Well, that's why they call it a dream.