A.I. and the Enthronement of “Good Enough”

HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey

Much has been written about the rapid rise of artificial intelligence (A.I.) in virtually every aspect of our lives. It is now possible to simply ask an A.I. application such as ChatGPT to create any content or provide any type of information in a matter of seconds.  When I first tried ChatGPT, I asked it to write me a 1000-word children’s story about a bird and a turtle as an experiment. That’s all I provided. Within seconds, the A.I. had created a story featuring characters with names, a conflict, and a resolution. It was cute and something I could see a parent reading to their child. After my initial amazement, I reread the story several times. While moderately entertaining, there was just something about it that didn’t sit well with me. I finally noticed that as fully realized and fleshed out with details the story was, it lacked a unique voice. There was no interesting, unexpected, quirky, or even poetic turn of phrase that one might encounter with a favorite author. The more I reread the story, the more I felt that it was hollow and soulless at its core. The non-human “author” did not have children. It couldn’t empathize and remember from personal experience as both a child and a parent what story-telling felt like. There was simply no sense of wonder. The words just lay flat on the screen gleaming with cold perfection. Instead of feeling warmth when rereading the story, I was ultimately left diminished. It was like eating a beautiful looking meal and being satisfied with how it tasted in the moment but feeling hunger soon after because there was no nutritional value. It then struck me that if this was a real attempt at crafting a story for commercial publication, someone, somewhere, in some position to make decisions about creative content, might easily determine that this story was “good enough” to publish with a few tweaks and was cost effective because no author had to be contracted. That decision might have been arrived at cynically or - perhaps even worse - arrived at because the decision maker truly could not discern the difference between art and cold craft.

Among all the other red flags surrounding A.I., this is one that I believe poses a significant threat to those of us in the creative arts. A story that is “good enough.” Set design and special effects that are “good enough.” And closer to home for me, musical compositions and musical performances that are “good enough.” It’s a lazy way to create, devoid of life experience. While initially impressive and maybe even satisfying, art created this way will ultimately leave no real lasting impression. Whenever I catch myself thinking that whatever section of a musical composition I am working on is “good enough,” I immediately stop composing. I take a break and come back to the section refreshed so that I may properly work through the music and arrive at the right and best solution for that piece. This is hard work accomplished through trial and error, experimentation, and just plain thought. I am certainly guided by craft in my work but I am also guided by intuition, experience, curiosity, and talent. Is an A.I. program similarly guided? Does it have intuition or talent?

Donald Erb (1927-2008)

There is a wonderful quote from my mentor, the great composer Donald Erb, that is affixed to my office door. It concerns itself with the creative process and reads: 

“A craftsman can create entertainment, but you need more than that to create art. You need an emotional, inspirational quality, because in and of itself craft means nothing. There has to be something inside you pushing out or all a person will ever write is a craftsman-like piece. And that's not quite good enough.’’

No matter how sophisticated A.I. software gets - and I readily acknowledge it is getting more sophisticated by the minute - I do not believe it will ever have something inside it that is compelled to be pushed out. I don’t believe you can program an emotional, inspirational quality within A.I. As Erb wisely points out, you need more than just craft to create art. In looking specifically at A.I., you need more than just sophisticated coding and machine based learning to create art. Humans - real humans who have lived lives full of joy, tragedy, failure, triumph, conflict, and reconciliation - create art to describe the human condition. How can A.I. really do that? It’s true that within the arts, A.I. can create great looking art and great sounding music. It may seem to be better than just “good enough” and it is only getting more sophisticated. However, like the little experiment I conducted with ChatGPT, it doesn’t hold up.   

Ultimately the problem is not A.I. Artificial intelligence in all of its varied forms is simply a tool. The real problem is a society that devalues art because it cannot distinguish between art and craft. It’s a society that has decided that teaching the arts in schools to children beginning from a young age all the way through their high school years is unimportant. It’s a society that places more value on short-cuts and cold efficiency than in the time and life-experience it takes to create something meaningful. Worse yet, we live in a society that, even if it could distinguish between art and craft, doesn’t care. Whatever content is being flushed into our consciousness provides enough entertainment for the moment and that’s “good enough.”  It’s a society that is easy prey for cynical gate-keepers in the entertainment and arts industries. Skynet is not coming for us. We are letting it in slowly all by ourselves. 

One of the reasons that TV and film writers and actors are currently on strike is to make sure producers are not allowed to give in to their baser instincts by providing what is just “good enough” in order to maximize profits. The soulless words of that children’s story experiment I conducted with A.I. haunt me and point towards a possible world that slowly starves itself of the arts while drowning in an over abundance of music, visual art, film, and television content. 

This is a possible world that is certainly not good enough for anyone.

Solidarity

At 12:01 AM PDT on May 2, 2023, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) – a labor union representing 11,500 writers - began a work stoppage against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). Two of the main issues driving the decision to strike are residuals from streaming media and the rise of artificial intelligence software such as ChatGPT. It is the writers’ contention that AMPTP's share of streaming residuals has cut much of the writers' average incomes compared to a decade ago. The writers are also concerned that A.I. has the potential of being used as a tool to replace them. The writers wish to make sure software such as ChatGPT be used only as a research tool or to facilitate script ideas. So, what does this labor dispute have to do with music composition and why should I care?

As a composer, I consider myself a writer of sorts although I deal with musical notes and not words. Nevertheless, there is a certain similitude between writers and composers. The mediums of television and film are performing arts. They exist in time, having a beginning, middle, and conclusion. Unlike a novel, poem, painting, or sculpture, the audience cannot linger over details at their own pace. That’s why dialogue, elements of story structure, pacing, and character development are so critical. Writers are also dependent upon actors, directors, and many others behind the scenes to make the art come to life. A screenplay is just a silent collection of sentences and directions until skilled actors tell the story. 

In music, the composer is also working in an art form that is performance based, existing fleetingly in time. Like a film or television program, a musical composition – even one that is purely abstract, so-called “absolute music” - also has a beginning, middle, and conclusion. Musical structure and the effective development of ideas over time are likewise as critical as plot development in a screenplay. Finally, composers are reliant on skilled musicians and conductors (as well as many others behind the scenes) to bring the music to life. Like a screenplay, a musical score is just a silent book of instructions until skilled musicians follow it to create music. In his brilliant book, The Rest Is Noise, author Alex Ross describes a musical composition as “… an artwork in code, which other musicians must be persuaded to unravel. Unlike a novel or a painting, a score gives up its full meaning only when it is performed in front of an audience; it is a child of loneliness that lives off crowds.” Substitute “screenplay” for “musical composition/score” and “actors” for “musicians” and Ross’s observation is equally valid.

This is why I find myself firmly in solidarity with the Writers Guild of America. It’s easy for me to imagine being in their shoes. In fact, on the issue of streaming residuals, I don’t really have to imagine at all. Composers and musical performing artists can certainly relate to the writers’ concerns when examining what Spotify or Apple Music pays them per stream for their music. They most often make a lot less than a single penny per stream. That’s bad enough for artists in popular music genres, with millions of streams. For composers of contemporary classical music, residuals from streaming are effectively non-existent. It’s easy therefore for me to find the writers’ concerns valid and to believe they are being disrespected and treated unfairly.

Without those of us who create content, the performing arts cannot exist. There is a beautiful and necessary collaboration and a certain chain of events that occurs to bring a performance to an audience. In television and film, among other important persons, a skilled director is necessary to maintain a vision, keep the overall project moving in a particular direction, and to help guide actors. Actors, in turn, may move a person to tears or laughter through performances based upon their talent and training. However, none of that matters if there is no story and performers have nothing written for them to say. Likewise in music, a skilled conductor or music coach is necessary to keep the piece moving in a certain direction and to help guide musicians. Musicians, in turn, may move a person to tears or to dancing due to their talent and training. Yet, none of that matters if the musical notes are not there. Whether working with traditional notation on staff paper or working out ideas in the studio by ear, someone must decide that out of silence, these are the notes that are born; this is the order in which they are to proceed; this is the pace they are to move; and this is how they will change over time.

I often tell my composition students that all composers (and I’m sure this goes for writers as well) face a “moment of loneliness” at the outset of the creative process wherein they stare deeply into the void of an empty staff. At this moment, no one can help them. A teacher cannot choose their notes for them, and neither can a friend or family member. They are truly on their own. And yet, one moment the staff is empty, the room is silent, or the page is blank, and the next moment there are notes, there is sound, there is a story. This lonely moment is suddenly transformed into a magical moment, an almost sacred moment. It is the beautiful moment of creation. From literally nothing, art is born. I can’t explain it and I consider it a miracle every time I begin composing a new work.

Our broken world is in desperate need of creation. All around us we are confronted with destruction whether on the battlefield of war; through senseless violence on our streets, in our malls, even our houses of worship; or in the causal devastation of our thoughtless words and actions towards our neighbors.

It’s so easy to tear down and destroy.

It is so incredibly difficult to create.

I can’t help but wonder that if society treats the creators of things they truly love (TV/films) with disrespect and indifference, what hope do those of us who create contemporary classical music have? Does disrespect and indifference towards creators contribute to the coarsening of our culture? I think it does and this is why I stand with all those writers and composers who bring art into existence out of nothingness. From a dopey sitcom or commercial jingle to a film or musical work that changes the world – writers are the builders of our shared society. We cannot and must not treat them as disposable, fungible cogs for those who regard the portraits of presidents on currency as the highest form of art. We cannot cheat them out of an income honorably earned, we cannot disregard art which is created out of a lifetime of sacrifice and experience, and we must certainly not hand the sacred moment of creation over to soulless robots and computers. That would surely result in a shared society that is not worth living in.

This is why the WGA strike resonates with me and why I believe it relates to my own art. Wishing strength and success to all those on the picket lines engaged in the good fight.

The Long Road Back

While I have always been sporadic in posting to this blog, this is my first entry since January 2019; the longest hiatus I have taken since beginning this endeavor in 2010. However, my time away has been from more than just this blog. I have taken a permanent leave from my life as I knew it. On August 16, 2019, my wife Maria passed away from metastatic breast cancer. The reoccurrence of her cancer after being cancer-free for over five years was a shock. The progression of the disease was swift and merciless. There are no words that I can use to adequately describe the depth of devastation in the wake of her passing. It is a loss that I am still trying to process nearly four years later.  

Maria Spell Demos (1962-2019)

When my life suddenly and drastically changed,  many existential questions flooded my mind. In looking for answers, I initially felt like a drowning man flailing desperately and reaching out for anything to keep me afloat. I was also at the intersection of two other significant challenges. First, shortly after Maria’s death, while I was just at the very beginning of the grieving process, COVID-19 overwhelmed the planet. Like almost every composer I know, the onset of this pandemic decimated my professional opportunities and left me isolated in quarantine with only Zoom conference calls and home delivery services as lifelines to the world outside. Certainly, this was not a good place to be while in unbearable emotional pain. Second, I was also still serving as the Director of the Georgia State University School of Music at this time. While the relentless busywork of that gig helped me a bit simply by blunting my thoughts and emotions, it had a deleterious effect on my creative output as a composer. When I first took the position as Director, Maria was still alive and I had energy, focus, and felt as though I could accomplish anything. For a short time, I did. In fact, I wrote a blog post about how my new admin position was actually helping my creative process (see the December 31, 2017 entry for all the glorious hubris). However, after Maria’s death, all such energy and ambition were extinguished. It was as if a huge deluge of water suddenly crashed upon the fire of my aspirations; a campfire encountering a tsunami. It is probably not too surprising that in the wake of this trauma, I am now no longer in an administrative position at my university having returned to the faculty.

The wonderful smol ensemble after their recent 

performance of my work, "small talk" at SoundNOW. 

(l-r): Justin Greene, Amy O'Dell, Monica Pearce, 

Paul Stevens, and Olivia Kieffer. (Credit: Elizabeth Theriot) 

At the same time, I have responded to my new life in various ways. I reinvigorated my prayer life and engaged in self-care activities such as therapy with a licensed professional, physical exercise, reading, and journaling. I also am incredibly fortunate to have family and friends who support me. One other valuable response has been a rededication to music composition. Although I did not ever completely abandon composing, whether at the height of my administrative responsibilities or the nadir of my emotional distress, my creative output was perhaps understandably slowed. Now, I feel like I am finally on the long road back. My return to this blog as well as much needed updates to my website bear witness to this. 

However, as I walk along this long road, it really doesn’t lead “back” to something familiar but rather, to a new destination. I know that I am no longer the same person I was before Maria’s death. Yet, as it turns out, I still need to compose; and need to do so regularly. I realize that the desire to enter the creative process and lose myself in the composition of music is important because it’s the only place that still feels familiar, a surviving treasure from a former life. I am beyond grateful that in the past few years, commissions, performances of my music, awards, and other opportunities I have been blessed to receive for my work serve as validation that whether heading “back,” or to a new place, I am on the right road.