The Night a Handel Opera Taught Me Not to Fear AI

This weekend, my wife teased on the family group chat about how I was dragging her out to see some Handel. Specifically, Orlando, performed by Lausanne Opera.

Now, the running joke in the family is that I am (indeed) an early music bigot. My son (who is planning to study music properly) assures me that Handel (and Bach, would you believe) merely cut and pastes his music and if you've heard one, you've heard the lot. Now, he is a clever chap, but I can't help it if he has no taste.

My better half eventually admitted it was amazing. The performance, the staging, the creative genius of performing the music, singing the libretto, delivering the recits in what we believe is virtually unchanged from 250 - 300 years ago... yet by placing the staging and asking the performers to create contemporary visual cues, it was transformed into something different, witty, and most importantly, beautiful.

Now, into my fourth paragraph, you would be right to ask why I write an opera review on a blog or post to LinkedIn.

The answer, with much that pre-occupies us, is AI.

We are all trying to navigate the radical impact that this new industrial revolution affects us in white and blue collar occupations alike. We are worried about the impact on youth employment and opportunities for training. We worry about what it means for where value goes, and from whence it is extracted.

This performance however sparked an optimistic flame in me.

I know that AI will help us drive more productivity, eliminate waste, and remove our tolerance for mediocrity. We can all see AI slop when we see it. Now, it does mean that for administravia, we will expect the operational efficiency these LLMs (with suitable guardrails) can deploy, but I cannot see how AI would produce what we saw on Friday night. AI could not give us the glorious, at times imperfect, human beauty we saw. And in an era of increasing convergence towards the mean, I believe we will demand more human, more beautiful, more creative products and services.

I am confident that AI will be able to replace the human slop of 8-series-long netflix shows - but it will never replace the artistry of JoJo Rabbit. Your streaming music app may try to feed you AI generated elevator music - but you won't tolerate it.

Of that I am sure.

(Image Lausanne Opera, Paul-Antoine Bénos-Djian © Carole Parodi)