Part One: On Humanity, Amidst Machines

Bots are key subjects in mainstream Hollywood.  Who doesn’t wish they had a loyal companion like the benevolent C3PO or R2D2 from Star Wars?  Yet Hollywood warns of a much darker side: the risks of Bots assuming control over humans.  Who can forget Hal, the intelligent, murdering computer in 2001, A Space Odyssey (“This mission is too important to be managed by humans”), or the Terminator series which predicted Judgement Day (when the machines would turn on humanity or the unlikely pairing of Will Smith and the Bot “Sonny” to defeat the Bot insurrection in I Robot? 

Beyond Hollywood, there are deeper issues which must now be resolved.  Who owns the copyright on music produced by Artificial Intelligence (AI)?  Current law only copyrights such intellectual property when it is created by a “natural person.”  Who is liable when an AI-programmed self-driven car hits a child?  The owner of the car, the car company or the individuals who programmed the algorithms?  

 The issues raised by Bots and AI are here!  And they present us with whole new assortment of issues - professional, legal, ethical . . . 

And so we sing . . .

Human Authenticity in an AI World

~ a two-season exploration of AI perspectives ~

Part 1:  On Humanity Amidst Machines

November 2023

Andrea Clearfield’s cantata, Beyond the Binary was commissioned by The Mendelssohn Chorus of Philadelphia, Dominic DiOrio, Artistic Director, to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the word “robot,” which first appeared in a Czech play of 1921.  In Ember’s first (of five) concerts looking at various ways in which AI impacts the human journey, Beyond the Binary forms the centerpiece.

Beyond the Binary is both tongue-in-cheek and ironic, both futuristic and retro, part fantastical with a hint of the absurd. But underlying it all, it has an epic quality meant to invoke questions about evolution, gender, what it means to be human and what we are capable of as a species. It begins with clear dualities: Robots’ pros vs cons, beware vs. proclaim, virtue of work vs comfort. It takes the first two thirds of the piece to start to move from binary (“yes-no, black-white, male-female, on-off, either-or” to a different approach - beyond the binary, to a deeper, more expansive philosophical conversation about what beyond the binary might mean.”

- Andrea Clearfield

In Concert Order . . . 

“Gitanjali,” literally meaning “Song Offering” in Bengali, is a collection of devotional poems by the Bengali poet, Rabindranath Tagore, published in 1910. Craig Hella Johnson has managed to create a mesmerizing effect in this a cappella composition that fuses both modern and ancient styles.  These particular texts serve as an invitation for performers and audience alike to “listen closely and acknowledge the gift of a deep inner calling that may be heard both in our silence and in our singing.” (quoting the composer)

Having evoked such an environment, we move directly (without break) into . . .

Beyond the Binary

In PROCESSIONAL, singers ‘go to work,’ punching the clock upon entering their fantastical factory workspace.  Instrumental soundscape, along with video of retro industrial images, set the stage for the conversation to emerge . . . 

I. PSALM:  The Robots are Coming.  Robots (“bots”) announce their approach, promising freedom from drudgery.  “Halleluyah, Selah!”

Interlude I (Oracle):  The Oracle the role of visionary/prophet; and commentator inviting us to consider large themes with questions.

II. DIALECTIC: Is There no Virtue in Toil?  This movement sets up the conflict between dualities:  the virtue of human work vs. Robots, who promise to free us from the yoke of labor.  The chorus often acts as a “Greek Chorus” commenting and siding with different characters. They also take sides against one another. “A soprano solo that questions “what is the use of stars when human beings have vanished from the earth,” representing a higher perspective.

III. ODE (To Robots).  Our baritone soloist serves as “robot salesman,” expounding on the virtues of robots: “How remarkable is the robot!” While a little sleezy and fully tongue-in-cheek, he also has moments of self reflection:  that he is “the original, faulty prototype” possibly to be replaced!   

Interlude 3 (Oracle)

IV. LAMENT (Of Love It Knows Nothing).  Soprano and alto voices poke fun at the robots, sliding, whining, sighing. “Alas, what a piece of work are Bots!”

V. ORACLE:  Idols of Silicon and Steel.  Out-and-out warning, in the form of an aria, to “foolish mortals” who might be seduced into making idols of these lifeless creatures.

Interlude 4 (Drones and more).  A meditation before the finalé.  Slow and unsettling, the choral voices spread in a microtonal texture. We begin to sense more possibilities, upon hearing the text that embodies the essence of this work:  “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy” (quoting Shakespeare’s Hamlet, speaking to Horatio). 

VI. RHAPSODY:  Beyond the Binary.  Here is the culmination, where the mind broadens to envision, possibly even embrace, more than a binary way of thinking. The movement starts with the old dichotomy (black/white, 1/0, on/off, yes/no, etc.), ultimately accelerating in intensity, into a complete break down!  (You’ll hear it in the music!)  Then, stillness for the realization: “But one is alone: and two divides us.” It is the big shift – the Awakening. 

The Awakening catalyzes a feeling of magic, creation, alchemy . . . “boiling cauldrons, roil the kettle, double double toil and trouble.”  (Shakespeare again, this time from Macbeth) Then it builds to a big choral climax: “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your reality. Halleluyah, Selah”

COMMENCEMENT.  The ending is called “commencement,” as it both signals an ending, and points to the beginning of something new, and leads us back into a meditative space (as established in Gitanjali Chants) in which to take in and consider large Life questions and options.

Can we move from BUT to AND, into a place of inclusivity, of thinking beyond the binary? Will we ever know? Can we move out of what has come before? Will there be a new world? Will we be a part of it?  Questions, to be sure . . . yet also a strong sense for what is possible. 

Live the Questions (2016) is based on a selection of texts from Letters to a Young Poet (1929), a series of ten letters written by the Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Rilke to Franz Kappus, who published them three years after Rilke’s death. Kappus was a 19-year-old cadet in the Austrian army seeking the established poet’s advice on the quality of his writing and on whether to pursue a military or a literary career. Rilke encouraged Kappus to trust his own judgment and to be patient in the midst of uncertainty. 

“There’s so much life wisdom in them,” Runestad says of the letters. “It’s just a stunning collection.” The composer translated the text used in the piece, in which Rilke gently counsels his young reader not to seek the answers to life’s questions from others, but rather to “live the questions now.”  The music reflects both the open-endedness of life’s biggest questions and the experiences that answer them (or not), wandering harmonically through many different key centers, led by melodic lines that transport listeners from one musical moment to another.

The Awakening (1995), it is important to note, references a dream that is not a good one!  It is a dream of a world absent of elements that bring meaning to life, one of which is “And no choir sang to change the world.”  !   Then there is The Awakening.  You’ll heard it in the music. For our purposes today, the move is one from a black-and-white existence (binary!) to one in living color, filled with possibility!

Opening paragraph written collaboratively by Gary Peterson and Deborah Simpkin King.

Beyond the Binary notes written collaborative by Andrea Clearfield and Deborah Simpkin King.