Generative Models and The Collapse of Taste

I know it when I see it.
- Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart (talking about pornography)

There is something about great art, about great writing: you know it when you see it. The Odyssey, Hamlet and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony have filtered down through the ages, have been conserved by history because there was something in them that speaks to a wide audience: everyone can find in Hamlet’s “to be or not to be” a reflection of the human condition (without having to be a Danish prince whose father’s ghost appears to tell him that his uncle murdered him out of lust for his mother), can find in the opening notes of Beethoven’s Fifth the sound of his or her own version of fate knocking.

This is in contrast with the uniqueness of their creators. There was but one Bard, but one Beethoven. Especially in the West (and particularly since the Romantic era and the decline of religion), we have begun putting artists on pedestals. They became the demigods of culture. But part of their genius is that their work remains intelligible to a large part of our society. We recognize it as great, not just because we’re told it is, but because we can feel it.

I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.
- Oscar Wilde

Still, the number of such works is vanishingly small. The music played in concert halls and at home roughly follows a power law: a few composers dominate, and even within their work, only a few pieces are performed again…