Can AI see beauty?
The life of a book + working in public (Issue #333)
Meta recently released a research paper proposing an AI model called Audiobox-Aesthetics. It’s designed to predict how people might rate the aesthetic quality of audio by assigning scores across four categories: production quality, production complexity, content enjoyment, and content usefulness. Each clip would be divided into ten-second chunks, normalized for loudness, and evaluated by a transformer-based system trained on listener ratings.
Former Pandora analyst
is skeptical that beauty can be quantified. Beauty, he argues, isn’t something you can extract from a waveform. It depends on context and sequence, not clean averages. “Aesthetic meaning,” he writes, “is not something that emerges from a statistical averaging of disjointed moments.” He concedes the model could be useful for optimizing platform recommendations, but stresses that it can’t understand why a song moves a person.AI-generated images raise a similar concern for writer and activist
. He argues that true art isn’t defined by fidelity or polish, but rather the accumulation of unconscious choices, each one shaped by a particular hand and mind. Without that thread of human intent, AI-generated images might be technically impressive, but they don’t communicate.Doctorow sees a lack of human intent as a fatal flaw of AI. But in my experience, intention can still guide the process.
During a deep Midjourney phase a few years ago, I started generating portraits of my novel’s characters, just to see them more clearly. I crafted highly specific prompts, adjusted the outputs, and iterated through hundreds of versions until I got what I wanted. It wasn’t about handing over creative control, but about using available technology to help actualize my vision. The images helped me describe the characters in sharper detail. It felt intuitive, not mechanical.
Anthony and Doctorow argue that AI can imitate the look or sound of beauty, but it doesn’t understand what makes it matter. Meaning comes from perspective, they say. I would retort that AI might not create with perspective, but it can reflect ours. And using these tools doesn’t always mean surrendering meaning.
Maybe the better question isn’t whether AI can make beautiful things, but whether it can help us see our own beauty more clearly.
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➡️ Stories we’ve been sharing
- On May 2, the Trump administration called for the elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts, and thousands of arts organizations across the U.S. had their grants canceled. Here’s a searchable, alphabetical list of those affected; chances are you’ll recognize some of the names on here.
- Writer and illustrator shares the process behind creating her newest book, warts and all: “If you are interested in writing a book, I think you should do it. Here’s the story of this one.”
- A surprising conclusion from a researcher after skimming thousands of academic studies, but is applicable to all of life: “Don’t judge the usefulness of your actions until you have given them enough time to surprise you.”
☕️ Your daily dose of practical wisdom on remote work
Work from home? Take your laptop to a public place the next time you’re on deadline. The ambient sounds of a library or cafe are a better distraction than the comforts of your own home.
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