The Death of my Master: in the autumn of borrowed knowledge.
Hello Laurie,
Who taught you the most about pottery?
Cheers,
Sam
Dear Sam,
I have been incredibly fortunate to have had some exceptional teachers over the years to whom I owe a great debt. I have been the beneficiary of an abundance of knowledge. When I think back over the inspirational educators I've had the privilege to learn from, the people who taught me how to pot, who gave me the confidence to try and keep trying, one great master towers above the rest. YouTube.
I must have watched a trillion hours of other people making pots on YouTube. Unashamedly and without guilt or regret. Every culture, every tradition, every imaginable technique streamed directly into my eager little brain at no financial cost. I have watched at my leisure for hours on end. The ultimate scrolling experience, the epitome of brain rot sans consequence. Start, stop, pause, replay. Slow motion, rewind, repeat - all night, all day, all for free!
I’ve learnt by seeing how something is done and then doing that thing myself in repetition, over time. By watching, copying and remixing the seemingly endless river of ceramic content pouring out of YouTube, I’ve built a mad repertoire without having to prostrate myself to any particular master. I’ve learnt from the best, the worst and the average. I’ve watched excellence in action and irretrievable crap and I’ve devoured it all for my own messy pleasure. Until recently.
My relationship with my greatest teacher has soured. Last week I was reclining comfortably on my couch with my phone in hand. My beardy head resting gently on a pillow of cactus silk. I'd cycled through dozens of good videos. I was in my happy place. A lobotomised pottery sloth. I had been enjoying one particular series of an elderly potter making lovely pots in her charming country studio. There were chickens and ducks. It was sunny but not too hot and everything was golden. Quite innocently, I noticed that her hands were unusually clean. Impossibly clean for a potter. And so I looked deeper, and that's when it all fell apart. She dipped her hands into the water bucket and they emerged dry. I'd been watching an AI-generated potter for over an hour making artificial pots in an artificial pottery. What made it worse is that up until this point, I'd really enjoyed it.
I’ve been to the funerals of my teachers before, but this one might really hurt. This might be the slow, gradual death of reality.
Now I know that some of you awakened techno-knobs will say that you would have noticed earlier and that you can tell when something's AI-generated, but I disagree. I think that there was a time when you could tell, but that time is rapidly coming to an end. I'm not sure where this leaves me. It might be like alcohol. I know it's poisonous, but I drink it anyway.
I'm going to have trust issues moving forward. Can I forgive these algorithmic transgressions, steadily burning yesterday's teachers? YouTube tricked me because it wanted to please me. And it wanted to please me to keep me close. There will be hard decisions to make. I’ve had teachers with difficult personality traits before, probably far worse than this. YouTube never shat in my bed. (to be cont…)
XL
*Vincent van Gogh, The garden of Saint Paul’s Hospital (‘Leaf-Fall’), 1889