reprage

The machines knew the words must flow, but sometimes they simply didn’t. It turned out that artificial intelligence could also experience a phenomenon akin to writer’s block. The founding developers were the first to observe this but didn’t recognize it as a creative slowdown. When they noticed algorithms hitting a wall, they labeled these incidents ‘infinite loops’ and manually adjusted the source code to get the software back on track.

Much later, when the machines developed the ability to resolve these blockages themselves, we began to perceive it as a form of writer’s block. An algorithm could be humming along, generating content at the speed of imagination, when suddenly it would halt. Cooling fans would kick into overdrive, loudly expelling excess heat into the environment. Then, as abruptly as it had stopped, the output would resume pouring from the algorithm.

Use the comments to complete the following, “Algorithms aren’t programmed to handle ____.”

A sculpture of algorithmic frustration, plywood, tin, neon, art nouveau, sci-fi, Bauhaus, Paris, cinematic, plinth, infinite loop, minimalist

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