05-31-2021, 09:44 PM
It can be "mocked", but at a certain point you gotta wonder -- what if the computer actually has intuition?
Another way to look at it is that the computer will still end up having been designed by a person, and so that person becomes the poet.
Part of the value in poetry seems to be that it's made by people. It's a human connection. Computers can and often do mock humanity nowadays, and plenty of people are fooled by them, but that hasn't stopped people from interacting with each other online or publicizing themselves and their art.
On the other hand, a lot of art is increasingly being valued without consideration for its humanity, not so much with whether or not it's made by a human as whether or not it satisfies this or that basic need. Art valued purely for spectacle, for melodrama, for political expediency -- art whose value is measured by dollars. Computers already satisfy those individual elements. So, too, lesser or still-improving artists. And in an age of semiliteracy and squandered democracy, fewer and fewer people are willing to consider the sum rather than the parts.
Then again, the people who do consider the sum have always been few. Great artists recognized as great during their time more likely survived because one or the other element seemed to shine brighter than everything else. Most people worry about base survival too much to consider art more deeply, while the rich have always been representative when it come to number of rubes. It seems to me more a function of history than any individual age to recognize those artists whose work is manifestly human. Though with anthropogenic climate change, rapidly developing diseases, and continuing access to nuclear weapons, who knows if we'll still have history in the future.
Another way to look at it is that the computer will still end up having been designed by a person, and so that person becomes the poet.
Part of the value in poetry seems to be that it's made by people. It's a human connection. Computers can and often do mock humanity nowadays, and plenty of people are fooled by them, but that hasn't stopped people from interacting with each other online or publicizing themselves and their art.
On the other hand, a lot of art is increasingly being valued without consideration for its humanity, not so much with whether or not it's made by a human as whether or not it satisfies this or that basic need. Art valued purely for spectacle, for melodrama, for political expediency -- art whose value is measured by dollars. Computers already satisfy those individual elements. So, too, lesser or still-improving artists. And in an age of semiliteracy and squandered democracy, fewer and fewer people are willing to consider the sum rather than the parts.
Then again, the people who do consider the sum have always been few. Great artists recognized as great during their time more likely survived because one or the other element seemed to shine brighter than everything else. Most people worry about base survival too much to consider art more deeply, while the rich have always been representative when it come to number of rubes. It seems to me more a function of history than any individual age to recognize those artists whose work is manifestly human. Though with anthropogenic climate change, rapidly developing diseases, and continuing access to nuclear weapons, who knows if we'll still have history in the future.