The thing machines don't have is stakes
The artist has stakes; the machine does not. A person who takes a hard public stance can lose something real, and the audience knows it. That changes what the work means.
Here is the cleanest way to name the difference.
Here is the cleanest way to name the difference. The artist has stakes. The machine does not.
There is originality of ideas, which earlier pieces in this newsletter have called the scarce input. The artist adds a second kind: originality of position. It comes not only from what you make, but from who you are while making it, and what you put at risk.
A person who takes a hard public stance can lose something. Their reputation. Their safety. Their relationships. A model cannot lose any of these. The audience senses this, and it changes what the work means.
The Dada artists understood this a century ago. Tristan Tzara made poems by pulling words from a hat. The method was mechanical. But a living person chose to do it, in a real moment, as an act of refusal that carried a cost.
Stakes. A person can lose reputation, safety, or relationships, and the audience feels it..
Here is the cleanest way to name the difference.
There is originality of ideas, which earlier pieces in this newsletter have called the scarce input.
The artist adds a second kind: originality of position.
So the line is clear. AI has stepped into the space of the author. It has not stepped into the space of the artist.
Barthes was right that a text does not need an author to make meaning. But culture needs more than texts. It needs people whose work we can read partly because their lives are visible, and whose lives matter partly because they are temporary.
There is originality of ideas, which earlier pieces in this newsletter have called the scarce input.
Stakes. A person can lose reputation, safety, or relationships, and the audience feels it.
The artist has stakes; the machine does not. A person who takes a hard public stance can lose something real, and the audience knows it. That changes what the work means.
This is the short version. Read the full-length essay, “The Artist’s Body”.
This issue is part of Everybody's Smart, a newsletter on taste, judgment, AI, culture, cognition, and the future of professional work. New issues every 2 to 3 weeks, free on LinkedIn.
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