What does an 1838 painting tell us about technological change?
A colleague and I decided to see how well LLMs could teach us a topic we knew nothing about. We picked the Romanticism art movement. I asked ChatGPT to tutor me on the topic for an hour. Chatty picked four paintings.Â
For each of these paintings, I put the painting up a one screen and used the voice feature to have ChatGPT give me an overview of each, and then we would have a discussion about it where I would ask about various features. Ended up spending about an hour on each. Was it successful? I now know significantly more about the Romantic art period and these paintings, though of course not an expert. It was certainly a better and more enjoyable experience than freshman seminar course on art history I took in college.
| The Fighting Temeraire by J.M.W. Turner (click on picture for more detail) |
The 98-gun ship Temeraire featured on the left fought in the Battle of Trafalgar. This painting captures the ship being towed by a steam tug through the Thames to be broken up for scrap.Â
Much to love in the painting: the reddish sunset, the reflections of the boats in the water, the detail of the Temeraire and the lack of detail of the tug.
But also note the nod to technological change, the tall sailboat being taken to its end by a coal-powered tugboat, marking the new era of shipping vessels, the industrial revolution in full swing, and the beauty we lose to progress. Now a bad metaphor for the AI revolution of today.