Beauty, Charisma and AI

Charisma is one of the two great transcendental forces in the social world: beauty is the other. 

So says Knaussgaard. But there's more. Neither may be learned or acquired, mostly. Both are qualities of specific individuals.

It is difficult to square this with our twin obsessions of equality and meritocracy. And so beauty and charisma are forces rarely spoken about.

Beauty eclipses everything, bedims all else, it is what we see first and what we consciously or unconsciously seek. 

Since the very first days of AI it has been questioned whether an AI is capable of art. Whether it could ever really be capable of beauty.

The latest generation of LLMs put that question to rest.

AIs can certainly create beautiful imagery - perhaps not yet masterpieces, but trending violently towards them.

Charisma is more neglected - as Chatbots optimise for lacking offense. But it may not always be thus.

Prediction: we will see LLMs (or interfaces on top of LLMs) trained for beauty and charisma before 2026.

What this might do to our discussions of beauty and charisma amongst ourselves, who knows.