Dancing with a Robot
Reflection #105: Would you celebrate a robot that danced with you in place of your spouse?
Robots are fine to automate many tasks, but would you celebrate a robot that danced with you in place of your spouse? What about a robot to make love with you when your spouse wasn’t in the mood?
How efficient that would be! You could dance (or have sex) at any time and with a partner who performed the steps perfectly to your liking!
“But that’s ridiculous,” you might think, because dance, art, is a dance between two souls.
And so, it is the same with all art.
Even if the robot, the AI, is better, it’s worse, because the point is the relationship, not the output of the “dance” itself.
Art is a mutual gift: That is Art’s real economic sphere.
Art transacts within the soul economy, not the market economy. The two economies only look superficially similar when viewed from a pure market economy viewpoint.
Using AI as a tool, in the hands of a master — one who has mastered his craft through hard work and deliberate practice — may enable new possibilities in Art, but AI, in the hands of a novice, or as a replacement for mastery, it is just soulless dancing with a robot.
“I am interested in art and ecstasy, ecstasy which I would define as the sensation of the soul in ascent, art as the expression and sole means…of passing on that ecstasy to others.” — Ezra Pound
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No AI Zone: Everything written in this post (and all my posts) is written 100% by me, Clint “Clintavo” Watson, a flesh and blood human seeking to grow my soul and come home my truest self; for that is the essence of creativity. Except for the rare brainstorming of ideas, historical research, or occasionally, character names and meanings, I do not use AI in my writing — that would deny me the very growth of my world through writing that I seek.
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Love it when you cut right through all the stuff and get right to the core with clarity, meaning and feeling. You did for me this time. Thanks.
I love your disclaimer about being a "flesh and blood human seeking to grow my soul."
The thing that many people miss about writing is that it helps the writer find clarity, but as you've pointed out - it also helps to grow the soul, because it connects the writer with his or her soul.
All this to say that I agree strongly that art transacts within the "soul economy," and not within the "market economy." And that AI without mastery, has no soul.
Maybe this explains why some in our world seem to be worshipping at the alter of AI. While it's a powerful data processing tool, it's a wasteland for the journey of one's soul.
Thank you.