Artificial Intelligence, particularly the ones that supposedly help with writing, might eventually take over news coverage, novel writing, speech writing, television writing, etc.
But it won’t be the same.
I was listening to “No Root. No Fruit,” a music podcast about influential albums by folk music artist and DJ, Matt Watroba. Each week Watroba gives a brief analysis of an album and interviews an artist who has been influenced by the album.
One of the episodes is about the album Mississippi John Hurt Today! Watroba explains each track, Hurt’s musical history, the difference between his blues and other blues artists. In short, he says, Hurt was, well, like no other. Matroba brings in Canadian singer/songwriter Garnet Rogers whose brother, Stan, gave him Today! as a Christmas gift and said, “This is all you need to know.”
Rogers explains the simplicity of Hurt’s finger picking style which could make one guitar sound like three playing at the same time. It’s a sound that prompted Dave Van Ronk to marvel the first time he heard it and remark that when he saw Hurt, it was, “as if I was sitting at the feet of God.”
Rogers said during the interview that he learned over time what it means to perform for an audience from the simplicity of Hurt’s music, his joy of performing.
Now I know that you may be wondering what that has to do with AI.
I’ve tried a couple of the artificial writing bots available on the Internet. I asked ChatGPT to write a song. I’ve asked it to write a blog post about what Woody Guthrie would have to say about AI.
I asked it to paraphrase what Garnet Rogers said about performing as it relates to John Hurt’s musical style and meaning. I got various responses:
- I work in this field. I am what I am. I'm glad you stopped by.
- I'm employed in this area. I am who I am. I'm happy you came by.
- I work in this region. Given that I am who I am. I'm glad you stopped by.
- What I do is this. I am the person I am. happy that you stopped by.
- I work in this field. I am what I am, period. I'm happy you stopped by.
What Rogers said was simpler and, to me, a more accurate description of not only Hurt’s music but also what it means to be a performer. He said:
This is what I do. This is who I am. Glad you happened by.
It’s more, if you will, folky, more personal, more human. It's the way people really talk and, hopefully, write.
Maybe the people creating all the AI bots just need to have their computers and algorithms listen to some John Hurt. He was indeed like no other. Isn’t that what we humans are, too? We’re unique. AI should strive to be that.
Right now, it seems the AI creators have lost sight of what it means to be human.
You can hear the great John Hurt by clicking here
