With the ubiquitous nature of beautiful things made by machines, AI Gen Art is rapidly changing the way we understand and value beauty.

The idea that anyone has access to create stunning artwork has many artists, and regular folk alike, wondering what this means for the things we’ve called beautiful until now.

Perhaps a little parable can help us understand it.

As lore has it, Mullah Nasreddin, a satirical Sufi figure believed to have lived around the 13th century, was asked by a disciple, “Is it proper to smoke while praying?” To which Mullah Nasreddin replied, “No, it is not. Prayer requires your full attention.”

Later, another disciple asked a slightly different question: “Is it proper to pray while smoking?” This time, Mullah Nasreddin answered, “Yes, it is. You can always pray, no matter what else you are doing.”

The apparent contradiction was one of context.

A.I. Art is changing the context of how we view and value beauty.

Beauty, now more ubiquitous than ever, means everyone can access it.

Say the words and something beautiful appears like magic.

How do we make sense of it?

Perhaps we can understand it better if we don’t conflate the idea of beauty with art.

While we often appreciate art for being beautiful, art is, and always has been contextual.

It is, in its highest form, a means of expressing tension at the juxtaposition of subjective vs. objective reality.

So, while AI fosters a plethora of beautiful artwork in abundance, the definition of art hasn’t really changed at all.

The famed poet John Keats framed this idea so well in the context of “Ode on a Grecian Urn.”

Keats suggests that beauty and truth are one and the same: that art, which is aesthetically pleasing (like the images on the urn) also carry profound truths about life, love, and mortality, in the context of the poem’s metaphor.

In his poem, these truths are immortalized in the urn’s beautiful forms, suggesting that beauty, in capturing the essence of human experiences, is a pathway to understanding universal truths.

Hence, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty” becomes a potent expression of art’s timeless and illuminating role in human life.

So, while the machines we’ve created spew our most aesthetically pleasing capabilities like a geyser —

Let us also remember that what is most meaningful about beauty is its power to help us gaze through our limited personal views.

And the best kind of beauty is the kind of imagination that is so expansive it gives us sight of new, objective truths.

Is this not what truly enchants us about beauty?

As Keats said so succinctly in the last two lines of the poem:
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

So, all you artists and creatives out there, forge onward with your craft.

If the advent of hive-mind AI reveals anything to us, it is that we still need art to reveal truth, and like art, we will need it just as we will always need each other.