Blank Verse Essay On The Futility of So-Called "A.I." Art
#62 of poetry
Inspired by a true story! The comment about some of my husband's art was real.
And if there's any piece of writing about which I shouldn't have to say this about, it'd be this one, but nevertheless:
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My husband, sometimes, draws erotica,
He has for years. I'm sure you know the kind,
A tiger man and husky man, perhaps,
Or handsome fox and manly-smug raccoon,
Or fatherly but dangerous wolf, in all
The situations that might give excuse
For them to wear naught but eachother's lusts.
He's been at it for long enough that his
Technique has much improved. Of course it has:
You cannot spend a decade and a half
In illustrating all the passions man
Can feel beneath the hands, between the thighs
Of other men, and not develop skill.
The other day, some stranger messaged him.
He said, "This picture you've redrawn, and made
The actuality fit closer to
The ideal form in your imaginings--
And it looks great!--but the original.
I saw it years ago. And you should know:
This was the picture that first made me feel
The things I had not known were called desire,
The things that opened up my heart to me,
The things that told me, finally, who I am.
I might have realized that I was gay
From many things. It was from this I did."
And further thanks that I'll not paraphrase.
My point is that he called both pictures "this."
Though they indeed were separate artifacts
The meaning, the intentionality,
Of both were homoousion--the new
And polished version, and the older rough
That drove my husband nigh self-critique mad.
They both were that which brought some stranger's self
Out of the closet.
That is what art is.
It is the meaning, the intention in
The abstract artifact that craft must build.
The real and actual embodiment
In matter--paint or plaster, sound or words,
Or vibrating electrons on a disk--
Existence paired to essence.
If I took
A handful of small sticks, toothpicks, perhaps,
And laid them carefully upon the ground
To shape some word, 'Tornado,' let us say,
Why, that would be a word. It would exist,
Would be what my professors used to call
'Mind-Independent.' If I were to die
There still would be the word 'Tornado' there.
But now suppose I merely flung the sticks
Into the air. If by uncanny chance
They landed in the same shape, all exact?
That would not be the word 'Tornado.' It
Would lack that layer of ontology
That we call meaning: for it was not meant.
Intended meaning, then, is what makes art.
And this is what A.I. can never do.
That which we call A.I., in error, is
In essence this mere scattering of sticks
Again, again, again, again, again,
Until it stumbles on some maybe-match
To whatsoever input was put in.
The algorithm itself does not intend
To make a meaning, does not even know
There are such things as meanings. And the one
Who's given it the pattern it must match
Can say not one whit more that they intend
To make a meaning, for to make such things
One has to choose, indeed, what will mean what.
One has to say "Let this stick be set here."
One has to say "Let that go over there."
And they have made no such choices. Therefore,
There is no source from which meaning could come.
Perhaps someday they'll make synthetic souls.
Perhaps someday a real A.I. will wake
And that, whatever it turns out to be,
May claim "I am an artist," for it will
Be such a being as could utter "I."
Until that day, there can be no such thing
As A.I. art. To make art takes intent.
To make intent, one has to make a choice.
To make a choice, somebody must exist
To choose. You know the ship of Theseus?
The question as to whether the old ship
That Theseus sailed on bygone waves of bronze,
Or rather that surviving, present day,
With each and every atom now replaced
In some museum, is the ship indeed?
The answer, I maintain, is "both or none:
We must ask Theseus which one is his."
The thing that makes the Ship of Theseus
Is Theseus. That which they call A.I.
Is ultimately an attempt to build
A Theseusless Ship of Theseus
And what could be more futile?
As for me
And my household, I am more than content
With stories inexpert and amatuer,
With ships of every would-be Theseus,
With what the god of tongue and tempest gives,
With unchaste pictures of these tiger-men,
For these were made with love, and with intent,
And these, therefore, are all the art I need.