Chris Bertram

It has been like this for weeks and weeks. And not just in the UK, but across much of Western Europe.

I’m not a Rawlsian, though I would admit to certain affinities, and, indeed, I’ve used the device associated with Rawls (though not invented by him) of the veil of ignorance in my own work. But when I disagree with Rawls, I hope I at least take the trouble to get him right. Sadly, one can’t say the same of the former Cambridge academic, political theorist and professional podcaster David Runciman. To be fair to him, Runciman’s podcasts are usually informative and entertaining and I’ve discovered things through them that I wouldn’t otherwise have come across. He also often has some really good guests. That’s usually enough to make up for the annoying tics that litter his output, most notably his habit of telling us that “X was rather like Y, but also the complete opposite of Y”, as a way of introducing some thinker or other.

My patience has been somewhat tested, though, by his latest series on What is Wrong with Political Philosophy?, a series of conversations with the King’s London political theorist and historian of political thought Paul Sagar on Aristotle, Adam Smith, Max Weber, Bernard Williams and Judith Shklar (I’ve not yet listened to the one dealing with the last two). Now I don’t have much complaint about the positive exposition of these figures by Runciman and Sagar, and that’s a useful public service. Nor do I much mind, even though I disagree, with their view that political philosophy ought to be about something like giving useful guidance to those engaged in politics. But this view, and its associated claim that politicians need to draw more on history and psychology to develop their practical wisdom is set up via an opposition to a caricature of normative political philosophy.
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Over the past few days I’ve found myself mulling the question of whether AI will destroy art and literature. Initially, I found myself comforted by a thought, articulated by Carrie Jenkins on bluesky, that since the value of art lies not simply in the product but in the process of its creation, art will survive intact. When I contemplate Van Gogh’s Starry Night, I’m not just considering a decontextualized pretty object such as an AI might produce, but something that results from human intention, contemplation and struggle and which flows from a life and its roots. So far, so good.

I was moved to think of Marx’s contrast in The Results of the Immediate Process of Production between Milton, who “produced Paradise Lost as a silkworm produces silk, as the activation of his own nature” and “the literary proletarian of Leipzig who produces books, such as compendia on political economy”. (See Capital vol 1, Penguin edition, p. 1044). The literary proletarian may be threatened by AIs, which can churn out such compendia, or perhaps boilerplate romantic fiction, but a Milton is not. But on further reflection, I think this is a mistake. Not that “Miltons” will entirely disappear but they will be oddities, isolates, like Sabato Rodia who built the Watts Towers.

The thing is, people do value products for their instrisic characteristics, divorced from the histories of the creation and creators. When people go to IKEA to buy a nice lamp or a rug, they are mostly indifferent to who has produced it: they want something that looks good, is affordable, and works. And AI can produce this, thereby depriving thousands of equivalents of the “literary proletarian” of their livelihoods. Sure, a few people might pay a premium for an Anni Albers-designed rug (and more for an original), but most will settle to adorn their home with an AI-produced knock-off at a fraction of the price.

The trouble is, that the elimination of the literary proletarians doesn’t simply leave the Miltons standing, unscathed. Mostly, art does not just emerge from a random genius popping up and producing great works but from a milieu which provides a context and an infrastructure. A network of other producers but also critics, dealers, suppliers, teachers. I believe Howard Becker writes about this in his book Art Works, but though it is on my to-read shelf, I have not yet done so. Some of those people produce output that is “art”, but since “art” is a prestige category, many others produce work that fails to rise to that level but which is merely decorative or entertaining. Many of them will have been trained in art schools or universities but have failed to make it as artists, but without them those schools will become unviable. In short, withouth the wider group of near-misses and engaged supporters it is hard to see where many artists will come from: thanks to AI they will lack a sea in which to hatch and then swim.