Dear Jessica Brennan,
Recently, I found myself quite nervous about Artificial Intelligence. What will AI do to artists, songwriters, authors, and all of us? What happens to the dreamers who need the oxygen of imagination to survive?
If AI can write a song in less than a second that sounds just like Depeche Mode, what hope is there for the actual humans trying to write songs; needing to write songs? If life is most fulfilled when dancing with the process of how it unfolds, what happens when a machine erases that process? Do we all go mad?
Then it dawned on me.
You can’t write a song that sounds like Depeche Mode if there was no Depeche Mode to begin with. You can’t copy a Monet if he never painted. You can’t write a book in the style of Margaret Atwood or Barbara Kingsolver if they didn’t birth the style in the first place.
So, I calmed down.
The lack of regulation of AI still concerns me, but I think the plan should be to stay informed on what’s happening in the digital world but be committed to who you are and what you bring to the real world.
Rudyard Kipling said,
“They copied all they could follow, But they couldn’t copy my mind;
So I left them sweating and stealing
A year and a half behind.”
What are you creating that’s worth copying?
Your own particular, innate gifts are your superpower. Stay true, and whenever possible, ignore artificial intelligence and use genuine intelligence.
Love,
Mum xo