“Choose the fake Mr. Benjamin”: Agape, Agape and the rise of AI — Gaddis’ prophecy.

Decades ago, William Gaddis published Agape, Agape, and decades later, we’ve seen that he was right. Agape, Agape follows the train of thought of a man nearing his death, recounting the effects of technology on art through a player piano  — and the demise of pure art. Now, artificial intelligence, a more developed form of technology, threatens true creativity and the expression of human emotion. 

Sven Birkerts, the writer of the introduction to the Penguin Classics copy of the book, calls Agape, Agape a “thinly veiled autobiographical rant,” suggesting that the opinions shared through the narrator’s words reflect — in some way — his own thoughts.

The rise of AI (artificial intelligence) has been used by many to imitate the work of creatives. It’s become so appealing because AI generates a piece of art — that may take hours by the hands of humans — in seconds. 

AI gives people a way to create tons and tons of ‘art’ in seconds. And this desire for quantity is mentioned by Gaddis, whose narrator recounts an idea of Bentham, an English philosopher, that claims that “Pushpin is as good as poetry if the quantity of pleasure given is the same.”

The quote is immediately followed by the narrator asking, “see that word quantity? The quantity of pleasure not the quality the whole point of it and these digital machines come in, the all-or-none machine Norbert Wiener called it” (​​Gaddis, 2002, p. 4). The consumption of AI creations feeds into people missing the point of pleasure, which the narrator argues is what they consume art for.

Gaddis’ narrator then introduces what could be considered the focal point of the book — the player piano. The player piano is used as a symbol of the effects of technology on art, and the subsequent demise of true art.

The narrator reads advertisements for the player piano, one reads “The biggest thrill in music is playing it yourself. It’s your own participation that rouses your emotions most” (Gaddis, 2002, p. 15). Another one reads “Every member of the household may be a performer” (Gaddis, 2002, p. 17). The narrator calls this the “romantic illusion of participating” (Gaddis, 2002, p.17).

This “romantic illusion of participating” is exactly what people get when they input an idea into a website like ChatGPT and receive something produced by AI. People are not putting any talent into these things except the brief creativity of coming up with an idea. Instead of the “thrill” of participating in art, people are getting the “illusion” described by the narrator of Agape, Agape.

After other ramblings and reflections, the narrator moves on to what a writer for biblioklept describes as “channel[ing] cultural historian Johan Huizinga and philosopher Walter Benjamin into a conversation about the conflict of art and commerce set against the backdrop of the rise of mass culture.”

If illusion wasn’t the death of true art, then the demolition of personality in art is. “Everything becomes an item of commerce and the market names the price. And the price becomes the criterion for everything,” the narrator quotes from his Mr. Huizinga (Gaddis, 2002, p.34). “Authenticity’s wiped out when the uniqueness of every reality is overcome by the acceptance of it’s reproduction, so art is designed for its reproducibility,” responds the narrator’s Mr. Benjamin (Gaddis, 2002, p.35). 

Here, through this (which appears to be an imaginary conversation), Gaddis’ narrator argues that the “mechanization of art” destroys authenticity, and thus, what makes art so special. The ability of technology to quickly create or reproduce art is valued more by the consumption-driven society of America than the true meaning and purpose of art — its soulfulness and uniqueness.

Artificial Intelligence takes away the personality and authenticity from art in the same way, directly drawing upon previous creations to produce a soulless product. Companies and people use AI because it’s faster and cheaper, but through its development, true art is being destroyed — like Gaddis predicted.

“Give them the choice, Mr. Benjamin, and the mass will always choose the fake.”

NOTE: This is a blog and a place for me to share my personal thoughts and observations. This is not by any means great writing — it’s just a thought I wanted to quickly get out. This is something I’d love to rewrite or edit later, but I wanted to get my thoughts out now. Thanks for taking a look!