Many contemporary artists talk about being inspired by science fiction writer Octavia Butler (b. 1947, d. 2006). Watch this 2005 interview with Butler on the independent news program, Democracy Now!
Video Duration: 15 min 39 sec (clip begins 0:00, ends 15:39)
Total Time for Activity: 30 minutes
Who is Octavia Butler?
Octavia Butler in interview with Amy Goodman and Juan González,'Remembering Octavia Butler: Black Sci-Fi Writer Shares Cautionary Tales In Unearthed 2005 Interview.' Youtube, uploaded by Democracy Now!, February 23, 2021.
QUOTATION
In the interview, Butler shares a verse that she wrote after hearing someone -- as she recounts it -- "answer a political question with a political slogan and he didn't seem to realize that he was quoting somebody. He seemed to have thought that he had a creative thought." The verse she wrote in response to this observation is the following:
Beware All too often, we say What we hear others say We think What we are told That we think We see What we are permitted to see Worse,We see What we are told that we see Repetition And pride Are the keys to this. To see And to hear Even an obvious lie Again And again And again May be to say it Almost by reflex Then to defend it Because we have said it And at last to embrace it Because we've defended it And because we cannot admit That we've embraced And defended An obvious lie Thus without thought Without intent We make mere echoes of ourselves.
REFLECTION
Reflect on the line "We make mere echoes of ourselves" from Butler's verse. Compare this kind of echo-making to that described in the following lines excerpted from a poem written by writer Gwendolyn Brooks to honor Mayor Harold Washington, the first African-American elected mayor in the city of Chicago:
Beyond steps that occur and close, your steps are echo-makers.
You can never be forgotten.
What is the difference between these two kinds of echo-making described by Butler and Brooks?
From what you currently understand of AI, where do you situate the kind of repetition that it typically produces when used without attention to issues of ethics and aesthetics? Give examples.
As you continue through the next chapters on individual artists, think about the way each of them are working deliberately between the two kinds of echo-making described by Butler and Brooks