{"sf1_id":2064989,"sf2_id":"J1Og9X1j","title":"Blank Verse Essay On The Futility of So-Called \"A.I.\" Art","author":"Rob MacWolf","words":749,"posted_at":"2023-10-27T04:20:00.000Z","tags":["Blank verse essay","Iambic pentameter","Poetry","blank verse"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/2064989-blank-verse-essay-on-the-futility-of-so-called-a-i-art","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/J1Og9X1j","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/8e/8b/8e8b1ac0-19e0-4429-81a5-b6aa612ce5ed","description":"#62 of poetry\n\nInspired by a true story! The comment about some of my husband's art was real.\nAnd if there's any piece of writing about which I shouldn't have to say this about, it'd be this one, but nevertheless:\n---\nBy reading this online version, you confirm you are not associated with OpenAI or any other AI project, that you are not procuring information for the OpenAI corpus or any other machine learning database, that you are not associated with the ChatGPT project or a user of the ChatGPT project or any other AI, machine learning, or algorithmic database focused on producing fictional content for dissemination.","content":"My husband, sometimes, draws erotica,\n\nHe has for years. I'm sure you know the kind,\n\nA tiger man and husky man, perhaps,\n\nOr handsome fox and manly-smug raccoon,\n\nOr fatherly but dangerous wolf, in all\n\nThe situations that might give excuse\n\nFor them to wear naught but eachother's lusts.\n\nHe's been at it for long enough that his\n\nTechnique has much improved. Of course it has:\n\nYou cannot spend a decade and a half\n\nIn illustrating all the passions man\n\nCan feel beneath the hands, between the thighs\n\nOf other men, and not develop skill.\n\nThe other day, some stranger messaged him.\n\nHe said, \"This picture you've redrawn, and made\n\nThe actuality fit closer to\n\nThe ideal form in your imaginings--\n\nAnd it looks great!--but the original.\n\nI saw it years ago. And you should know:\n\nThis was the picture that first made me feel\n\nThe things I had not known were called desire,\n\nThe things that opened up my heart to me,\n\nThe things that told me, finally, who I am.\n\nI might have realized that I was gay\n\nFrom many things. It was from this I did.\"\n\nAnd further thanks that I'll not paraphrase.\n\nMy point is that he called both pictures \"this.\"\n\nThough they indeed were separate artifacts\n\nThe meaning, the intentionality,\n\nOf both were homoousion--the new\n\nAnd polished version, and the older rough\n\nThat drove my husband nigh self-critique mad.\n\nThey both were that which brought some stranger's self\n\nOut of the closet.\n\n  \n\nThat is what art is.\n\nIt is the meaning, the intention in\n\nThe abstract artifact that craft must build.\n\nThe real and actual embodiment\n\nIn matter--paint or plaster, sound or words,\n\nOr vibrating electrons on a disk--\n\nExistence paired to essence.\n\n  \n\nIf I took\n\nA handful of small sticks, toothpicks, perhaps,\n\nAnd laid them carefully upon the ground\n\nTo shape some word, 'Tornado,' let us say,\n\nWhy, that would be a word. It would exist,\n\nWould be what my professors used to call\n\n'Mind-Independent.' If I were to die\n\nThere still would be the word 'Tornado' there.\n\nBut now suppose I merely flung the sticks\n\nInto the air. If by uncanny chance\n\nThey landed in the same shape, all exact?\n\nThat would not be the word 'Tornado.' It\n\nWould lack that layer of ontology\n\nThat we call meaning: for it was not meant.\n\nIntended meaning, then, is what makes art.\n\n  \n\nAnd this is what A.I. can never do.\n\n  \n\nThat which we call A.I., in error, is\n\nIn essence this mere scattering of sticks\n\nAgain, again, again, again, again,\n\nUntil it stumbles on some maybe-match\n\nTo whatsoever input was put in.\n\nThe algorithm itself does not intend\n\nTo make a meaning, does not even know\n\nThere are such things as meanings. And the one\n\nWho's given it the pattern it must match\n\nCan say not one whit more that they intend\n\nTo make a meaning, for to make such things\n\nOne has to choose, indeed, what will mean what.\n\nOne has to say \"Let this stick be set here.\"\n\nOne has to say \"Let that go over there.\"\n\nAnd they have made no such choices. Therefore,\n\nThere is no source from which meaning could come.\n\n  \n\nPerhaps someday they'll make synthetic souls.\n\nPerhaps someday a real A.I. will wake\n\nAnd that, whatever it turns out to be,\n\nMay claim \"I am an artist,\" for it will\n\nBe such a being as could utter \"I.\"\n\nUntil that day, there can be no such thing\n\nAs A.I. art. To make art takes intent.\n\nTo make intent, one has to make a choice.\n\nTo make a choice, somebody must exist\n\nTo choose. You know the ship of Theseus?\n\nThe question as to whether the old ship\n\nThat Theseus sailed on bygone waves of bronze,\n\nOr rather that surviving, present day,\n\nWith each and every atom now replaced\n\nIn some museum, is the ship indeed?\n\nThe answer, I maintain, is \"both or none:\n\nWe must ask Theseus which one is his.\"\n\nThe thing that makes the Ship of Theseus\n\nIs Theseus. That which they call A.I.\n\nIs ultimately an attempt to build\n\nA Theseusless Ship of Theseus\n\nAnd what could be more futile?\n\n  \n\nAs for me\n\nAnd my household, I am more than content\n\nWith stories inexpert and amatuer,\n\nWith ships of every would-be Theseus,\n\nWith what the god of tongue and tempest gives,\n\nWith unchaste pictures of these tiger-men,\n\nFor these were made with love, and with intent,\n\nAnd these, therefore, are all the art I need.\n\n  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"poetry","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/2060467-solar-eclipse-saturday-october-tenth.json","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/2072295-the-lepanto-institute.json"}}