The Spark of Creation

Ben Wildsmith 

I’ve been terrorising my writer pals this week by prompting Chat GPT to produce work in their styles and sending it to them.

It’s an appalling thing to do, rather like emailing photographs of blackened lungs to smokers.

Because, even after reading all that post-structural ‘death of the author’ stuff they accosted us with at university, nobody has really reckoned with the idea of machines replacing us on this level.

We’ve watched cashiers disappear from supermarkets and ordered burgers from those big screens that somehow nudge you towards extra gluttony, as if the absence of human eyes unleashes our abandon.

All of that and the banking apps, satnav voices, and digital assistants have at least posed at centring us in our interactions with them. What’s coming now doesn’t need our grubby, organic input at all.

If anything, we’re a hindrance to its smooth functioning.

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Torrential rain

I’m writing this after a ten-hour day at work and an hour’s drive home through torrential rain. There’s every chance that my memory, technical aptitude, and sense of humour are not in peak condition.

I’m also on another dreary diet, trading in the last vice available to me in the hope of prolonging my presence on our sweet, swinging sphere. Frankly, I’m not in the mood.

I just want a sausage roll, not to be staring into the abyss of Wes Streeting’s smile and assuaging our collective terror with jokes.

I did read a good one the other day, though. What do you call a Welshman with four prostitutes? Pedwar Pimp.

Quality content that, got it off @ChallisMusings Twitter page. I don’t know if he wrote it or just passed it on.

Such concerns are soon to be as quaint as the speaking clock, as cut-and-paste culture is wholly subsumed into a behemothic engine of perpetual creation that is continually refining itself to outpace anything new it encounters.

Here’s where we’re at so far. If I don’t want to write about the sinister jollity of the UK Secretary of State for Health, then let’s have a look at what the machine can do.

Write about Wes Streeting in the style of Ben Wildsmith.

Wes Streeting’s ascent in the Labour Party has been nothing short of remarkable—a rags-to-Parliament story straight out of the political playbook. With his working-class upbringing, Cambridge education, and smooth media presence, he’s managed to position himself as the golden boy of Labour’s future: polished, pragmatic, and permanently in campaign mode.

Streeting is the sort of politician who, when he walks into a room, gives off the distinct impression that he’s already imagining the applause at his first Prime Minister's Questions.

 But here’s the rub: Wes Streeting is trying to be everything to everyone, and in doing so, risks being nothing to anyone at all.

If Keir Starmer is Labour’s reliable Ford Mondeo—steady, dependable, and a bit dull—Streeting fancies himself as the sleek hybrid of politics, equally capable of dazzling the left while purring along the corridors of corporate power. He’s Labour’s ambassador to the business community, and unlike the old guard, Streeting wants you to know that a Labour government isn’t something that will send markets tumbling—it’s a safe pair of hands. Well, his hands, at least.

It took less than two seconds to come up with that. If you’ve read my columns before, you’ll recognise the crass posturing and em-dash-happy reliance on subordinate clauses from pretty much everything I’ve ever done.

I have a go at comedy though, don’t I? Let’s see how it gets on with that.

Make it satirical.

Ah, Wes Streeting. The human embodiment of a focus group in an M&S suit. When he’s not out delivering soundbites to whichever camera is nearest, he’s in a perpetual state of readiness, poised to explain why, no matter what’s happening, it’s a win for Labour, and most importantly, a win for him.

Streeting is that rare breed of politician who manages to be everywhere at once while somehow saying very little of substance—sort of like an Alexa device that only responds with centrist slogans.

 Wes, or as we should probably call him, “The Future of the Party,” according to people who think Keir Starmer is a bit too radical, has developed an impressive knack for being all things to all people. Want someone who’ll stand up to the Tories? Wes is your man. Need someone to quietly reassure the City that Labour isn’t actually going to change anything important? Wes is also your man.

Caution

I’m not going to lie; I’d believe that was me. It’s slightly less offensive but you can probably mark that down to corporate caution on behalf of its owners.

Talking of ownership, who should be getting paid for this? I’ve generated it for free in seconds and sold it to Nation.Cymru.

On the other hand, Chat GPT has plundered my entire professional output to replicate me for anyone who might consider paying for my services.

Most creative people, me included, are deep in denial about how this is going to unfold. Like tribal people having their souls stolen by photography, artists in all fields are feeling this as a threat to their essence.

Culture has already been ironed into flat convenience by the twin steamrollers of commercialism and reproductive technology. Where is your next favourite band coming from if you can order up a new Beatles album on demand?

Let’s give Dylan Thomas the last word.

For even in the coldest machine, there is the spark of creation, the shadow of the poet’s hand. And in the end, we and it are bound together, our fates twisted like the roots of the ancient oaks, deep in the earth, beneath the hum and hiss of the digital sky.