My thoughts after listening to my walk walk by breaking the rust
In the 21st century, we have more art than we know what to do with at our fingertips, allowing us to dive deeper than ever into things that reflect our own special interests. Take science fiction romance, for example, twenty years ago there were only a few books in this genre and now there are thousands of books about alien romance, but still, for most people, they don’t even know this book category because they have their own special interest.
Never in history have we had such choices (only time will tell whether it is good or bad or another phase of our development).
But in all this art, AI “art” is appearing alongside human art.
Sometimes people can create amazing things with AI. Whether it’s a photo of something we wish was true like a room on the side of a mountain with snow falling outside, a video of cats making a podcast, or a corporate interview with someone (and ironically, the company doesn’t condone using AI).
While I can appreciate cats doing podcasts, I find no fulfillment in AI generative art trying to replicate deep human emotions.
But a telltale sign is when the AI ​​has no breathing room when it’s trying to strike chords with human suffering. Because AI doesn’t need to blink, breathe, or move, it’s never taken into account when creating art. For example, break out the ring to the new country song “Merry Walk Walk.”
There is no breathing room. And I don’t mean that the song is sung, but it’s too perfect, too complete to even be human. And so, I quickly lose interest. And it’s not because the music or the lyrics aren’t happy. That’s because there’s something about perfect consistency that lets me know it’s not a real person trying to talk to me through art. It’s like there’s something instinctive in my gut that tells me, ‘It’s not important because this isn’t the person telling me their truth.’
I also get this with writing AI. I’ve seen people post short stories that Ai wrote, and while they’re good, there’s something about them. There is no hesitation, no doubt, no overconfidence. Everything is unnatural even for fiction.
Here’s a list of my favorite books that intentionally use less than perfect grammar to tell their stories. Surprisingly, despite their grammatical errors, their stories speak to us.
- Their eyes were looking at God by Zora Neale Hurston (Dialects, Broken Syntax)
- Voice and attitude by William Faulkner (incorrect grammar = psychological realism)
- Ulysses by James Joyce (run-ons, fragments, and pure grammatical rebellion)
- Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (there is nothing “correct” about it and therefore it is pure genius)
- Color purple by Alice Walker (An Unstructured Letter Full of Voice, Pain, and Truth)
- A clockwork orange by Anthony Burgess (juvenile delinquent slang + invented grammar = iconic)
- Beloved by Toni Morrison (Tongue Breaks from Shock)
- Train spotting By Irene Welsh (Scottish Dialect and Chaotic Syntax)
- Voting Heights (Joseph’s dialect is famous) by Emily Brontë Irreplaceable on purpose)
- on the road by Jack Kerouac (jazz prose typed on a scroll and grammar optional)
In my view, all humans need human authenticity when it comes to consuming art and AI is like the fast food of art consumption.
Humans need art. Otherwise, what is the point of life? And right now AI can’t create art that speaks to our souls.
And I don’t know if it will ever be possible. It can always be the fast food of art.
Ai will never make Van Gogh’s Starry Night. It can now replicate it but it lacks the humanity to know what is behind the society and the emotions of the society it creates. But it’s a classic that a hundred years later, the painting or the books I mentioned earlier, still speak to our innate need to connect with other human beings and what it means to live to be happy and cry.
And finally, I believe that as we know AI it can only replicate what is already there and it doesn’t even understand why, it just uses probability and not probability. And now we know that it is really important and nothing will replace human artistry.