AI and the Blue Flower
- Oct 9, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 19
I want to start this with a quick anecdote. I was in a cab and the driver asked if he could turn up the music. I told him sure, and the song that played was a good one. It sounded soulful and vaguely familiar. I asked him who it was. He said it was Biggie Smalls, the rapper, but he was singing a soulful song.
I thought wow, this is incredible. Biggie Smalls is dead. Somebody must've found a new recording. Also, I never knew he could sing like that. And then the cabbie told me. It was AI.
I felt a knot in my stomach. I even asked him to turn it off.
So let's talk about AI and what that means for the Blue Flower. Because if AI can write poetry, create pictures, tell stories, and even bring back a soulful Biggie Smalls, then what is there left for us to do?
But that question itself is revealing, because it's totally focused on the products, the artifacts. But that was never the underlying basis for art. Art isn't only about producing something.
It's not just about the thing itself, it's about the longing that produced it.
So yes, AI can produce a painting, but it can't stand before it and have its world expanded. It can't fall in love… or grieve… or wonder why it's here at all. And that distinction makes all the difference.
Mark Rothko makes a similar point:
"A painting isn't a picture of an experience. It's an experience."
His point here is that art isn't just something that we make. It's something that we live.
Byung-Chul Han
Han isn't so worried about AI itself, but rather about the culture that it creates. And how it has so little room for contemplation.
"The Scent of Time is the lingering perfume of a life that is becoming increasingly rare: a life that lingers, that refuses to be hurried, and that seeks deeper meaning in a world obsessed with speed and efficiency."
Because the Blue Flower has never been about efficiency. It's about attention.
So ultimately the question about AI isn't whether it can create art. It's how it will impact us. Will we continue to seek meaning and beauty and wonder and connection in a world that is designed to optimize things.
But make no mistake, the Blue Flower will always survive because it was never about content. It was always about longing.
A machine can generate a song, but it can’t miss someone when it’s over.
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