Aesthetic ability is the iron rice bowl during the AI era

As AI is sweeping the workplace in today, aesthetic ability is becoming the key to distinguish between “utility player” and “creators”, and aesthetic judgment is hidden in everyone’s perceptual system.

Just as Mr.Zong Baihua said: “Aesthetics is the study of ‘beauty’, while art is the skill of creating ‘beauty’; poetry and spring are both embodiments of beauty. One is the beauty of art, and the other is the beauty of nature. We all seek her traces in the world of sight and hearing.” The enlightenment poem of the nameless nun is full of Zen meaning. It seems to say, “The truth is not far away from people.” It should not be that “The truth is right before our eyes, yet we seek it far away”. It seems to say “If you cannot find beauty in your own heart, then there is no place for you to discover the traces of beauty.”

Just like how a painter needs to both discover beauty and grasp the overall artistic conception while also being capable of polishing the details of brushstrokes, this ability to both take the big picture into account and pay attention to the minute details – AI has yet to replicate this. Many entrepreneurs are passionate about tasting wine, appreciating paintings and collecting artworks. Don’t think they are “showing off”. They are actually quietly enhancing their aesthetic abilities. The founder of IKEA started his business by selling matches, but he built a global home furnishing empire by understanding the aesthetics of life.

Ordinary people do not need to become artists to enhance their aesthetic ability. Careful observation and analysis of the details in life, such as the gradual change of the withering and flourishing of fallen leaves, and the moss growth in the cracks of buildings, are all exercises in forging our “aesthetic muscles”. As machines become increasingly intelligent, only the perception and creation of beauty can enable us to maintain the warmth and value of being “human”.