The Work of Art in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

[jody2.718]

Mark: ...

"so much of what writers & poets create is specific to their time & place..."

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Speaking of specific times and places, you might recall where we were when we were discussing the end of this essay, some 30 years ago, back in 1984:

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THE word ''Luddite'' continues to be applied with contempt to anyone with doubts about technology, especially the nuclear kind. Luddites today are no longer faced with human factory owners and vulnerable machines. As well-known President and unintentional Luddite D. D. Eisenhower prophesied when he left office, there is now a permanent power establishment of admirals, generals and corporate CEO's, up against whom us average poor bastards are completely outclassed, although Ike didn't put it quite that way. We are all supposed to keep tranquil and allow it to go on, even though, because of the data revolution, it becomes every day less possible to fool any of the people any of the time. If our world survives, the next great challenge to watch out for will come - you heard it here first - when the curves of research and development in artificial intelligence, molecular biology and robotics all converge. Oboy. It will be amazing and unpredictable, and even the biggest of brass, let us devoutly hope, are going to be caught flat-footed. It is certainly something for all good Luddites to look forward to if, God willing, we should live so long. Meantime, as Americans, we can take comfort, however minimal and cold, from Lord Byron's mischievously improvised song, in which he, like other observers of the time, saw clear identification between the first Luddites and our own revolutionary origins. It begins:

As the Liberty lads o'er the sea
Bought their freedom, and cheaply, with blood,
So we, boys, we
Will die fighting, or live free,
And down with all kings but King Ludd!

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That convergence will always be just out of reach, but the delta t has become nearly insignificant. Unfortunately the "Liberty Lads," at this stage, are resembling "The Proud Boys" more than Brainy Smurf, and company, but we are just beginning to see where this is heading. The A.I. based bio-molecular technologies like roseTTA and AlphFold, offering amazing 3D proteonomics, and the DNA editing technology like Crispr Cas9, are opening a new era whence bio-molecular engineering might become as much of an art form as a science.

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