Crafts offer an alternative to sitting on
our hands and waiting for the changes
that Artificial Intelligence will
inevitably bring.
My Kindergarten woodworking
students had arrived early in woodshop
as I was preparing materials for the
day’s lesson. I asked them whether I
should make things easier for them…
or should I leave the lesson hard
enough to challenge them. They
assured me that leaving things hard
was good. It would give them the
opportunity of greater pride in their
own work. This gets to the heart of the
matter in this age of Artificial
intelligence. Do we make things easier
for ourselves, offloading to the internet
our intellect and the challenges faced
in our own heads and hands to be
easily serviced by the machine or shall
we leave things challenging enough to
offer growth.
There are certainly chores that are
considered odious and monotonous.
They are considered mindless, though
they are not. They will drive us to
distraction when we are preferring to be doing other things. As a woodworker I can find sanding
to be one such chore, or I might choose instead, to revel in the gradual slow process changing
grits one at a time from coarse to fine— rough wood to smooth enough for the pleasure of both
hand and eye. Years ago, a friend suggested that we can either view things as “we have to do it”
or “we get to do it.” Attitude is everything. Making light of our labors we make our work light.
People seeing my work excuse themselves,
“I don’t have the patience for that,
” while they still
have plenty of patience for stop lights and all the delaying inconveniences of modern life. The
choice is theirs and they make it.
Back in the days when manual and industrial arts were being widely introduced in the US, Otto
Salomon, promoter of the Swedish sloyd method suggested that the value of the craftsperson’s
work may be in the utility and beauty of the objects they create, but for the student learning his
or her craft, the value of their work is in them as they grow to face ever greater challenges. Shall
we ignore the burden of growth and leave all thumbs a-twiddle while fingers, hands, arms and
minds do nothing to lift us, or others, from the burdens in life. Shall we let artificial intelligence
do all in our behalf, building massive, community destroying, power grabbing data centers to do
so, while we linger in idleness?
Years ago, when my father-in-law was in his late 80’s I bought him a carving knife from the
Woodcraft catalog as a Christmas gift and made a couple carving blanks that he might try his
hand. After Christmas he put the carving set away and it sat in the closet for a while. Later, he
got the knife out of the box and went to work. He set up a carving spot next to a table on the
screened-in porch and would send his wife to Home Depot to buy wood for his projects. From
that point until he was ninety nine, woodcarving gave him something to do each day. He took
pride in his work and would tell me on the phone about the masterpieces he had planned, each
one better than the last as his skills of mind and hand grew. My daughter and others have prized
collections of his works.
The simple point is that craftmanship is a human inclination that fits all ages and once started,
invites a natural inclination to get better at what we do. And even poets and philosophers craft
their work.
In a recent papal encyclical Pope Leo took a strong stance against the misuse of Artificial
intelligence, promoting instead, the dignity and humanity gained from real labor.
He suggested that we retain a fundamental social role for all human beings, saying, “A society
that guarantees employment to only a small fraction of the population, despite having a high
level of technical development, risks exposing many to forced inactivity, a lack of responsibility
and the absence of daily tasks and stimuli, resulting in human and cultural impoverishment.
”
Otto Salomon, the proponent of Sloyd, among many others had suggested that the education of
all students in crafts would build in them a sense of the dignity of all labor, allowing us to take
pride in it and the accomplishments of each other. Charles B. Gilbert, superintendent of the
Newark, N.J. public schools, asked then answered “What is the great foe of democracy at all
times? It is the building up of walls—permanent walls—between classes; is it not? So long as
wealth disappears with a single generation or two generations there is not any great danger; but
when we get into the position—condition (If we ever do)—that many of the countries of the
world are in; if a child is born with the feeling that he is born in a class—that there is a great gulf
or a high wall between him and his neighbor who is born in a different class; then democracy is
dead.
”
University of North Carolina researcher, Dr. Kelly Lambert, suggests the value of “effort driven
rewards” …good feelings that arise in us even from simple tasks. Even vacuuming and doing the
dishes can help. A major symptom of depression is a sense of powerless. But for the
craftsperson, we observe and control changes that take place within the material in our own
minds and hands that can help us feel better about ourselves, and better about the world that
surrounds us. As described by Charles Hamm in his book Mind and Hand, 1886, advocating
crafts in all schools, “When it shall have been demonstrated that the highest degree of education
results from combining manual with intellectual training, the laborer will feel the pride of a
genuine triumph; for the consciousness that every thought-impelled blow educates him, and so
raises him in the scale of manhood, will nerve his arm, and fire his brain with hope and courage.
In the face of Artificial Intelligence, we may need all the hope and courage our hands can
provide us.
A study of London cab drivers says that they develop larger than normal hippocampi suggesting
perhaps that our brains are sized and capable based on what we put in them and how they are
used. A Harvard study suggests that those London cabbies have a far lower rate of suffering from
Alzheimer’s than is normal in the population. Thus, perhaps even our health is closely related to
how we use our minds. So, shall we let a great idleness begin or shall we take matters and
material in our own hands? And what do you do if artificial intelligence takes its predicted toll?
The loss of your job, perhaps? Prepare as best you can.
As a professional woodworker, I invite all to join me in making things useful in your own life
and for others. Take up a tool and let the transformation of society and your own life begin. It
won’t be easy. Chaucer had said, "The lyf so short, the craft so long to learn, the' assay so hard,
so sharp the conquerying." But start with simple things. Do what interests you, and when things
fail to turn out to your satisfaction, learn from your failures. Do them again using what you have
learned.
Patience and attentiveness of mind are learned skills. Hands and fingers unused to
delicate operations will feel awkward at first. You will get better.
I have been a self-employed woodworker, teacher and writer in the small community of
Eureka Springs, Arkansas where I’ve been lucky to find a market for my work for the last 50
years. It is a good life. I suggest that we make beautiful and useful things and encourage others to
do so. Artificial intelligence will not be needed for that.
Make, fix and create...
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