When comparing and contrasting whether a human being with no musical, literary, or artistic background can create something comparable to a specialist with extensive training in their field, the current artistic debate over AI-generated art and content is often framed in the wrong terms. People ask whether a song made with tools like Suno AI is “as good” as one created by trained musicians. But in my opinion, this question misses the deeper issue entirely. The real divide is not between good and bad art, nor even between human and machine production. It is between two fundamentally different conceptions of what art is for, for both the producer and the consumer.

One view treats art as a product. In this framework, the value of a song, book, or painting lies in its ability to produce an effect, pleasure, meaning, or emotional resonance. If a listener is moved, then the method of creation is secondary, perhaps even irrelevant. From this perspective, AI is simply the latest and most powerful tool in a long line of artistic innovations. A good song is a good song. These are the words of a dear friend with whom I dined last night, who is not a professional musician but is using Suno and creating music he feels is far superior to anything produced before the advent of AI. He noted the sonic limitations inherent in the studio recording process, as well as human imperfection. He asserted that thanks to Suno, a more perfect product is in reach for everyone, regardless of training or experience. He still loves Jethro Tull and all the classic bands of his generation, and has deep respect for his professional musician friends, but he feels the future of music is bright, thanks to tools like Suno.

As someone who, without the use of ChatGPT, spent eight years crafting a modern-day rewrite of Plato’s Apology, I decided not to push back on my friend’s analysis and prove him wrong, but rather ask him to focus on something different, using my book as a jumping-off point for my extrapolations. I am a big fan of the wisdom of Greek philosophy, and I would argue that Plato and Aristotle treat art not primarily as a product but as a practice, more specifically, a discipline through which the artist cultivates their soul. In dialogues such as the Apology, Plato presents a vision of human excellence rooted not in outcomes but in the ongoing work of self-examination, struggle, and refinement. The unexamined life, Socrates famously argues, is not worth living. What matters is not what one produces, but what one becomes in the process of producing it. Thus, the journey of creating my book was worth far more to me than the destination, or final product. The words on its pages are a reflection of my soul.

If I used ChatGPT to craft my book, the finished product would have no meaning whatsoever to me.

This distinction clarifies the most important point: When my friend played his music for his friends, who happen to be some of the world’s finest session musicians, they initially loved it because they thought he had written the song, hired session musicians, and created it the old-fashioned way. On the other hand, these same musicians’ reactions shifted dramatically upon learning that a song they admired was generated by prompts rather than performance. Their initial praise was not merely for the sound they heard, but for what they believed the sound represented: years of training, disciplined collaboration, and the hard-won intuition that comes from embodied practice. When that assumption collapsed, so too did their admiration, not necessarily for the artifact but for the achievement it no longer signified.

To those like my friend who adopt the product-oriented view, this reaction can seem irrational, even hypocritical. If the song has not changed, why should its value? But from a Platonic perspective, the reaction is entirely coherent. The value was never located solely in the object itself. It was located in the relationship between the object and the soul that produced it.

This is where the rise of AI forces a confrontation that cannot be easily avoided. If machines can generate artifacts equal to or superior to those produced through years of human discipline, then the traditional link between effort and excellence is broken, at least at the level of output. But Plato’s framework suggests that this rupture does not eliminate the value of disciplined practice; it reveals where that value truly resides.

The purpose of artistic labor, on this view, is not merely to externalize something beautiful or impressive into the world. It is to shape the artist’s internal life. The years spent struggling to write a book, to master an instrument, or to refine a philosophical argument are not incidental hardships on the way to a finished product. They are the point. Through repetition, failure, and incremental improvement, the individual develops judgment, patience, humility, and a deeper awareness of both their limitations and their capacities.

An AI system can replicate the appearance of mastery, but it does not undergo this transformation. Nor, crucially, does the person who relies on it in the same way. Prompting a system, selecting outputs, and refining results may produce satisfaction, even genuine fulfillment, which my friend likened to heroin, but it is a different kind of engagement. It is closer to direction than to discipline, closer to curation than to cultivation.

This does not make it illegitimate. It simply places it in a different category of human activity. If my friend derives sustenance from his use of Suno, I applaud him and wish him well on his creative journey.

The danger arises when these categories are conflated. If we begin to evaluate all artistic activity solely by the quality of its outputs, we risk erasing the very processes that have historically given art its deeper human significance. In such a world, the incentive to endure the long, arduous journey of mastery diminishes, because the destination can be reached more quickly by other means.

And yet, the Platonic perspective suggests that those who understand the true value of the journey will continue regardless. They will write books over the course of years, not because no shortcut exists, but because the shortcut cannot deliver what they are actually seeking. The finished work may or may not be superior to what a machine could produce. That is no longer the central concern.

What matters is that, through the act of creation, they have engaged in the difficult and often uncomfortable process of becoming more fully themselves.

In this sense, AI does not render human artistry obsolete. It clarifies its purpose. It forces a distinction between art as consumption and art as formation, between the artifact and the artist. Those like my friend who care primarily about the former will embrace the new tools without hesitation. Those like me committed to the latter will continue the older path, not out of nostalgia or resistance, but out of a recognition that the deepest value of art has never resided in the work alone. It resides in the soul that is shaped by the work. Every time I embark on one of my self-produced and self-financed endeavors, the words of the great Charles Bukowski are always in the depths of my soul: “If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery–isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)