Ah the portcullis to the philosophical topic of, “if you couldn’t tell, does that demonstrate that authenticity doesn’t matter?”
Ah the portcullis to the philosophical topic of, “if you couldn’t tell, does that demonstrate that authenticity doesn’t matter?”
I think it does, We could get a robotic arm to paint in the style of a Dutch master but it'd not be a Dutch master.
I'd sooner have a ship painting from the little shop in the village with the little old fella who paints them in the shop than a perfect robotic simulacrum of a Rembrandt.
Intention matters but it matters less sometimes but I think it matters.
Writing is communication, it's one of the things we as humans do that makes us unique - why would I want to reduce that to a machine generating it or read it when it has.
I’ve been learning piano and I’ve noticed a similar thing with music. You can listen to perfect machine generated performances of songs and there is just something missing. A live performance even of a master pianist will have little ‘mistakes’ or interpretations that make the whole performance so much more enjoyable. Not only that, but just knowing that a person spent months drilling a song adds something.
Two things this great comment reminds me of:
I've been learning piano too, and I find more joy in performing a piece poorly, than listening to it played competently. My brother asked me why I play if I'm just playing music that's already been performed (a leading question, he's not ignorant). I asked him why he plays hockey if you can watch pros play it far better. It's the journey, not the destination.
I've been (re-)re-re-watching Star Trek TNG and Data touches on this issue numerous times, one of which is specifically about performing violin (but also reciting Shakespeare). And the message is what you're sharing: to recite a piece with perfect technical execution results an in imperfect performance. It's the _human_ aspects that lend a piece deep emotion that other humans connect with, often without being able to concretely describe why. Let us feel your emotions through your work. Everyting written on the page is just the medium for those emotions. Without emotion, your perfectly recited piece is a delivered blank message.
> Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43745/andrea-del-sart...
That's also why in The Matrix (1999) the main character takes the red pill (facing grim reality) rather than the blue pill (forgetting about grim reality and going back to a happy illusion).
Aye I always thought the character of Cypher was tragic as well, his reality sucked so much that he'd consciously go back and live a lie he doesn't remember and then forget he made that choice.
The Matrix was and is fantastic on many levels.
It’s a shame they never made any sequels