AI Inspiration


An AI is not inspired because a computer doesn't have a soul.

AI has a limited ability to inspire.

Humans are better-inspired by other inspired humans.

The human soul

Humans have an inner spirit. When we give expression to our inspiration, we create in the world what had started on the inside. My thoughts, feelings and soul have provided me a desire to create. Each of us have an ability to create.

If all I did, however, was type into the AI input box and press the button, I didn't really give voice to any part of my soul that is designed for and thrives when creating.

Ideas are cheap

You've heard that ideas are cheap. It's because execution is what is really valuable -- doing instead of just aspiring.

My children get to pick what we have for family dinner on their birthdays. They're so proud, sometimes telling us what they chose as if the choosing of the thing should produce as much awe and gratitude in us as the providing and cooking of the thing. It's repeated often enough that it's become a joke in our family to say, "I requested this," when at dinner. Oooh, ahh.

So it seems sometimes when we press a button and the AI toils and spins, spits something out, and we show it proudly. What are we proud about? I think we're sometimes delusional as to what the accomplishment really was.

Someone who is good at typing into an AI box doesn't have some great skill. He's doing what is cheap. He has given over what is great to the AI.

Inspiration from human achievement

I'm not sure the reference, but once I heard an anecdote about one of Chopin's (or someone's) particularly difficult piano pieces. Because of its supreme difficulty, it was said that you never heard anyone play it, but you heard people attempt to play it, and that was what we really wanted most to hear anyway. (If someone knows this reference, please let me know.)

We are inspired by the human attempt. We see an artist push to the limit of their ability. Perhaps the pianist's fingers are crumbling under the withering runs; or the rhythm is difficult to keep up; or we can barely catch the tempo. We feel how stretched the human is. (Or we are the human feeling the stretching.) We tense up, we sweat, we are fixated -- almost by proxy. And we rejoice at the triumphs and the glorious attempts of the humans we observe.

We feel a kinship and shared humanity in their endeavor. When we rise and clap for beautiful music, we rise for the players and their heroic effort as much as the sounds that have met our eardrums.

Shared creation is our common humanity

Pizza is a always a good idea. You can't go wrong. In fact, we should have pizza for dinner. But I value more the person who actually gets up and makes the pizza.

Of course, a machine can make a pizza. Let's say, for sake of argument, it can even make a good pizza. But there is no human connection in a machine pizza. If my wife makes a pizza for my birthday, she made it for me. It is an expression of her love. It has her own flair and imprint upon it. She spent her life's time to make it. She spent her day's energy to make it. I am inspired not just by the taste of good pizza and full stomach after dinner. My relationship with her is strengthened because of a human experience we had with each other.

If I can only have machine pizza or no pizza, sometimes I will still choose machine pizza. It has its utility. But art with no humanity feels empty and uninteresting.

AI Surprise

Much of what people think in "inspiring" about AI isn't inspiration. I think it's mostly surprise. As in, "I'm surprised that a computer can do that, because I haven't seen a computer do that before."

My spirit is not moved. My eyes are dazzled.

Inspired by AI

I grant that inspiration may come from AI. What comes out of it may be impressive. It might lead me to a new idea. But for me to really be inspired, I must do something really inspiring. Perhaps this is a reason that "moved" is a synonym for "inspired".

I must create, and once I create, what am I really then feeling inspired by? By my experience and by what human effort and ingenuity made. Someone who takes even an inspired idea, merely inputs it into an AI box and copy-pastes the output is merely a pipe for AI. He is a source of nothing.

AI's most inspiring aspect isn't what can be piped out of it. It is years of human research and preparation that went into creating the possibility of the AIs that wow us.

Androids dream of nothing, electric sheep notwithstanding. Dreams come from humans. They come from our creative souls. Our souls are touched by God -- before, at and after birth. He gives us agency to act and create and fan the spark into a life full of creation.

As I was writing notes for this post, I was reading Will Durant's Story of Civilization with a couple of my children. In Vol. 3, ch. 24, during the description of the great artists and their works that came even during the decline of Rome, I ran into this paragraph which speaks to this idea I've been thinking about:

Longinus, perhaps of Palmyra, composed a polished essay Peri hypsus, "On the Sublime"; the peculiar pleasure given by literature (runs the argument) is due to the "lifting up" (ekstasis) of the reader by the eloquence that comes to a writer from strength of conviction and sincerity of character.

The truth is well said, and the durability of the idea is encouraging. The human who encounters the art will be inspired to the degree there was convinction and sincerity and character in the artist. Inspired humans inspire humans.