Art & AI: Material vs Numinous

The Arts
1

a draft of something I’m working on curious to know your thoughts

One day, entire novels will be written by Artificial Intelligence. And no matter how well-read and discerning you think you are, you won’t be able to tell. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s already happened. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sally Rooney is actually a flesh-clad cyborg with the brain of some as-yet released large language model fed purely on transcripts of middle-class dinner parties.

We can cry, we can whine. We can throw away our iPhones and struggle to T9 text on our dumb Nokias. It won’t do anything to stop the inexorable march towards Singularity.

Besides, what’s the use in going up against a rival that can write 100,000 words in a second? It might be shit but with such huge quantities of shit able to be thrown at the proverbial wall, by mere mathematical calculation, something is bound to stick.

Consider this:

Two identical bowls. Atom for atom exactly the same. One is made by a machine, the other, made by human hands. Which one has more value?

The correct answer is of course the human-made bowl.

You may say, What’s the difference? They’re exactly the same.

The same? Well, they look the same. They’re made out of the same stuff, they perform the exact same job. As things they are the same. But the world is not just a place of things and stuff. It’s a place of dreams and desires, of histories and potential.

The hand made bowl is imbued with a quality uniquely human. History is alive within the bowl. The years it took for the bowl-maker to perfect their craft exists in the curves, in the rounding of the lip and the depth of the foot it balances on.

The bowl retains its experience – birthed in some white-lit studio somewhere, maybe, with paint-blotted tables two metres wide; clay flecked aprons hanging on the wall. There was music playing, maybe, soft contemplative instrumentals – or, actually, there was silence, the only sound the splash of water as the bowl-maker moistened their caked fingers.

But you’re just imagining that.

Yeah. Exactly. The beauty of the bowl extends outside the realm of things and stuff. It hums with a numinous aura. It becomes a symbol of something, potentially intangible, unspeakable. How do you describe the feeling of running your thumb over a smooth piece of rock said to have fallen from a caveman’s necklace? It’s a feeling outside of time – it’s not just the past you touch, it’s the thoughts of the caveman, the ancient imagination manifest in your palm. You might say to yourself, If only the caveman could see it now, the hand it holds, me, the world in which surrounds it. Would he have ever imagined his stone would end up here?

That’s what human art can do. Every piece we create is a piece of ourselves broken off and offered up.

2

you should define value more clearly, as this is fundamental to your argument

3

I don’t want to get lost in definitions. I think you know exactly what i mean when I say value. It’s a akin to ‘meaningful’ but without the sense of ‘definition’ that the word meaningful has
for example, the ‘value’ of a family heirloom compared to an exact replica.

4

I’m not afraid of AI. AI has not produced a single notable work since its inception. As a complex, man-made system it is very difficult to maintain an AI and it is also difficult to get it to create works of lasting value. Contrary to popular belief, but we are actually nearing the end of technological progress, and the end product of this tinkering will lack the invention and spontaneity of a biological, thinking animal.

This being said, art is purely material. It is not magic; at least not when understood. Theoretically there could be some machine to create works that rival our insight, but that machine would already be like a human.

5

One other thing: I have developed an alternative method of studying creative writing that can allow humans to compete with machines.

6

engage with what I’m saying.

Take two exactly the same objects/materials. One of them is a family heirloom given to you by your great grandma that survived a war. the other is an exact replica. Are they both the same?

7

They’re identical, but the one created by the human has different memories / associations. This constitutes a physical difference.

8

a few points.

  1. let’s say the exact replica was made by a human. What’s your response?
  2. So, by implications, you’re saying memories and associations are physical?
  3. Do you have any heirlooms? Would you be okay with swapping it for an exact replica? I’d like to know yes or no and your reasons why! thanks.
9

Ideas are physical objects. They’re arrangements of atoms / ropes swinging between the atoms in different directions. So a person who creates an object has memories with that object, constituting a physical difference.

Of course, when creating an exact clone of an object, the human may begin sharing his associations with the clone.

10

Ideas are physical objects. Hmm. Okay, this has had me thinking all day.

To steel-man you: So ideas are just the specific firing of neurons in the brain. When electric pulses stimulate the fatty tissues in our brain, the human whose brain it is (the ‘object’) then ‘has’ that idea.

I think I would ask then. How do we generate ideas? Where do they ‘come’ from? An object has a physical presence but it also has an origin. An object is made up of specific things, right? A table is made up of ‘stuff’, whatever that stuff be. That object has shape which is specific to that shape. That table’s stuff came from somewhere, right?

But that’s not true of ideas. Ideas seem to ‘come’ to us. We are inspired. We are ‘reminded’ of things. We can choose in the moment to generate an idea, seemingly out of nowhere. Because what is the ‘source’ of that idea? The source of my chair is a tree. That’s the stuff it’s made from. But the ‘source’ of an idea? Just electricity in the brain? What is electricity? electrons. So are electrons ideas? This rabbit hole leads us to the Hard Problem of Consciousness (which I hope you won’t dismiss or try to explain away). Because atoms are just space, 99% space and what isn’t space is just more electricity. This means the universe is just one big electricity-storm in constant vibration. Now you’re the one getting hookeykookey haha. If you pick that thread of ‘everything is just atoms and how they interact’ you reduce reality to one big chemical reaction. Which leads you to the big bang. which then leaves you with the one big miracle, how did the ever-expanding universe begin as the size of the pin-point? The world of matter is a lot more metaphorical you people realise. physicists are constantly being confronted with the magic of the universe and are always redefining their definitions, extended the boundaries of what is possible.

If ideas are just electrons and electricity then you could extend the argument to say the universe is conscious. we are conscious, we are just electricity and atoms, therefore, the universe has the ability to be, also. I think that’s close to the truth. I think the universe is a macrocosm of our inner world and our inner world are a microcosm of the macro. as above so below, all the way to the top, all the way to the bottom. From the quark to the multi-verse.

11

I think another aspect of the “value” of human made art vs AI generated is that the human made objects were actually made. AI works seem to be purely about the final product and not at all about the journey or activity of making them. They exist purely as an outcome, not as a process or activity.

A common view of such value might be people assigning monetary value to things based on how long they took to create - an artist or craftsman having an hourly rate for example. Another would be difficulty, such as a pianist being valued and paid higher if he has a repertoire of more complicated pieces.

I personally think that there is also value to the enjoyment that the artist had while making the art. An AI has no enjoyment of the process, or any process at all even, whereas a man can experience the struggle or joy that is worth something in itself, regardless of how the final piece ends up. There’s a quote by Robert Henri relating to this:

“There are people who buy pictures because they were difficult to do, and are done. Such pictures are often only a record of pain and dull perseverance. Great works of art should look as though they were made in joy. Real joy is a tremendous activity, dull drudgery is nothing to it.”
― Robert Henri, The Art Spirit

12

I enjoy this line. This is true of beauty in human people as well, their history affecting other people’s perception of them.

I however have always been a fan of separating the art from the artist. To separate ideas from the messenger.
I think the idea applies to AI and its outputs as well.
There is just a certain pejorative aesthetic judgement made about the AI history and not about the caveman history. What is the source of this negative feeling? Is it a general “Luddism?” A concern for the singularity and its consequences? Wha?