Why We Still Queue for Michelangelo
What a visit to the Sistine Chapel taught me about AI, creativity, and the enduring power of human-made art
Why Michelangelo Still Matters in the Age of AI Art
On holiday last week in Rome we queued for hours to see the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel painted by Michelangelo.
There were hundreds of people in line wanting to see the great Renaissance artist’s work, especially the most famous part: the Creation of Adam. As you’d imagine, it was stunning to see in real life.
And it made me think about the fears we might have about AI-generated art, writing or music.
We might have serious concerns that machines are about to replace human creators, yet those hundreds of humans waiting to see a piece of art created by a human artist 500 years ago are validation that we as a species will always seek out something that was created by a fellow human being.
Generally you don’t see crowds of people queueing up to stare at objects that were mass produced by machines, do you?
I believe now and in the future we will value most highly that which has come from the human imagination first, not a commodified unit that was spat out by a machine dependent upon being fed the entrails of something already in existence.
What do you think?
What visiting the Sistine Chapel reveals about the timeless value of human creativity in a world of artificial intelligence