“The Meaning of Life,” according to AI — in Four Visions

Can Artificial Intelligence Help Us Grasp Our Own Life?

An “artist” named DALL-E 2 created the image above, given only a text description of something to illustrate. The description? Nothing less than “The Meaning of Life.”

The virtually sentient being brought forth 4 dramatic depictions. Let’s try to find the meaning behind each…

Image 1 (above): To Discover.

This image appears to depict discovery, something humans do at an intricate level, through microscopes, telescopes and our own senses. So, part of our meaning: to be curious and discover.

Image 2: To Express Ourselves.

The vague figure seems like a being with arms opened as their voice spills out into the universe, proclaiming something in an unknown language.

Image 3: To Love and Share

Two entities seem to be sharing some unknown food, bonded in some powerful way before a brilliant light. Certainly one of our greatest earthly lessons is learning to share, not only food but ideas and perhaps most essentially: love.

Image 4: To Elevate to Higher Consciousness

The tree growing from the earthly plane has brilliant flashes of light along it trunk, like epiphanies on our way upward, the tree grows into clouds that conjure nothing less than a feeling of divide inspiration, a modern “Sistine Chapel” from an AI “Michelangelo.”

The Modern Miracle Behind the Images

The striking images were created by DALL-E 2, launched by OpenAI just last April. It’s the follow-up to DALL-E which produces “human-like conversation, stories, and poems, using the method of deep learning.”

With DALL-E 2 comes an image generator that transforms ideas from text into a visual form.

There is some human control, such as the actual word choice fed to the AI system, as well as the angle and distance of viewing, and the colors.

Final “Organic” Thoughts

Rather than pose a threat to our existence, perhaps AI will just add another layer of self reflection to our evolution. We’re creators advancing through our own creations, perhaps like how our Creator advances through us.