There is beauty to be found in robot arms swinging together in perfect synchronicity to build the next Ford F-150 or Tesla Model S. That’s why such an image is often featured in the ads. It conveys precision and consistency. Quality. What would be our reaction to an advertisement for the Boston Symphony Orchestra if it featured not the grand image of synchronized musicians drawing bows, but instead a series of disembodied robot arms stroking the strings? Something like disgust? The appeal of the event would drop to near zero (but for the electronic trade-show type engineering appeal). Why is that?
I am dreading the day, and I am confident it is not far off, when I learn that a new song I have come to love was produced entirely by an algorithm without any human intervention and without the performance or recording of a single instrument.
A friend recently asked,, “If the Beach Boys ‘God Only Knows’ was revealed to have been written by an algorithm, would I love it less?” Yes. I think I would. The revelation would certainly make me sad. It would feel like a loss and not only because I had been led to believe it was written by Brian Wilson. The trickery is not the important problem.
Consider the tag robot. Currently and for most of human history, we have relied on children to play tag. They have to put on sneakers (or take their shoes off depending on the child), go outside and Run Around. We could save all their time and effort–and minimize injury–if we simply build robots to do that for them. The robots would be way better at tag than any child could be. We would see some amazing tag performances. Top notch. Robots could probably play tag at a level that most children cannot even comprehend, nevermind reproduce. We and our children could watch together, so it would be a whole-family experience. But of course this would be absurd. It would remove the very heart of the thing–the actual play. The play is the thing.
Play is part of creation. It is re-creation and it is co-creation. This is captured in Proverbs 8:3, personifying Wisdom and anticipating Christ, “I was with him forming all things: and was delighted everyday, playing before him at all times.” Wisdom is participating with God in acts of creation which can look like work, but can feel like play.
This is true of music (and all human creative endeavors) as well. The loss of the human art of writing and performing the music, the reduction of people to prompt writers and consumers should feel like a loss. So yes I will be sad and the world will suffer a real loss as music (and other arts) are generated more and more by machines without human intervention. To hand that kind of play over to machines is a mistake–as absurd as building robots to play tag.
So if I see them gathering out front, pardon me if I shout, “Hey you robots! Get off my lawn!”