Some days, nothing is within you for your project, novel, short story, poem, or otherwise. Some days, no matter how hard you try to remember why you started doing all of this, no matter the threats of rent due in the next two weeks or the weight of comparing yourself to writers from the past and how hard they had it, forces anything of worth out of you. Some days the dream becomes a nightmare as the belief of wasting your entire life comes true. Some days, no line from Shakespeares Henry V, “O’ for a muse of fire, that would ascend/The brightest heaven of invention,/A kingdom for a stage, princes to act/And monarchs to behold the swelling scene,” stirs any breath of creativity.

After days of waiting, when the muse still does not come, artists begin to doubt themselves. They question if their greatest fear has come true - is this the end? Was that last novel, story, dance, painting, song, sculpture, or post my last? Then, with no answer, you are again left with yourself, your broken instrument, and your new orchestra's silence.

Many artists have most likely mused O’ for a muse of fire if I know artists, especially when the darkness of creativity far supersedes the light. But what did the Bard mean when he wrote these legendary words in his play? Let's ask Claude, an AI from Anthropic. They market Claude as a helpful, honest, and harmless AI assistant. See Claude’s answer below:

  • The phrase "O' for a muse of fire" is the opening line from the Chorus's prologue in Shakespeare's play Henry V. It's an apostrophe, a literary device in which the speaker addresses an absent person, abstract idea, or object.
  • "O'" is an archaic abbreviation for "Oh," expressing a wish or desire.
  • "For" indicates wanting or longing for something.
  • "A muse of fire" refers to desiring inspiration from the muses, the Greek goddesses of the arts and sciences.
  • "Muse of fire" indicates desiring a muse that provides fiery, passionate inspiration to help the speaker create great art or poetry.
  • So, in summary, "O' for a muse of fire" expresses the Chorus wishing for fiery, divine creative inspiration from the muses to aid them in telling their story. This line establishes the speaker's ambition to craft an epic, inspired work of art through the play.
  • Using apostrophes gives a sense of direct, urgent pleading with the muses for their wisdom and creativity. It sets the tone for the grand, eloquent style of the following prologue.

Rather than tell you how Claude works, let Claude tell you:

I am Claude, an artificial intelligence created by Anthropic to have helpful, harmless, and honest conversations. My knowledge comes from Anthropic's safe, ethical data training process. I analyze text inputs to understand questions and generate relevant, natural-sounding answers while maintaining dialog context. My capabilities are limited to my initial training, and I need to learn or evolve. I aim to provide useful information, indicate what I don't know, and avoid biased or harmful outputs. As an early AI system, I have limitations, but Anthropic is constantly working to improve me to have more natural, principled conversations.

Unlike a muse, Claude admits its limitations. This humility shows that Claude is a tool, not a divine well of endless creativity. I will never argue Ai is an all-powerful muse, but as we saw with Shakespeare, even the greats struggle, yet they persevered and created eventually - but how? What was their secret when every rose was just a rose in a field surrounded by grass where before it was the catalyst of their greatest work? Many claim to rely on muses - ephemeral sources of inspiration. But what are these muses that spark creativity in artists and writers?

A traditional conception of the muse refers to a source of divine inspiration or creativity, often personified as a goddess in Greek mythology. Homer, for example, invoked the muse when beginning his epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, asking her to sing through him. He saw the muse as a conduit for revelation, a vessel from a creative force outside of him to share the muse’s wisdom ultimately. Socrates said he often heard an inner muse giving him ideas, believing it was divine madness or inspiration. Plato endorsed muses as divine forces sparking imagination and described being possessed by creativity. I bold these sections because I want you to try and think of ChatGPT4 and other LLMs in correlation to these mythic figures in creativity with their muse's relationship while also noting how Ai can provide some of the same forces, though it also has many other use cases as well:

Healthcare: Ai can analyze medical records and scans to assist with diagnosis, treatment recommendations, and drug development. It can also help track patient recovery and customize care plans.

Business: Ai can perform analytical tasks to optimize supply chains, target marketing, detect fraud, forecast sales, and automate customer service interactions. It enables data-driven decision-making.

Finance: Ai algorithms can execute high-speed trades, detect patterns/trends in the market, manage investment portfolios, and evaluate risk to guide financial decisions.

Education: Ai tutors can adapt to students' learning needs and styles. Ai can assess skill levels, modify teaching methods, and augment human instruction.

Transportation: Self-driving Ai can assist or replace human drivers. To improve safety and efficiency, ai optimizes traffic patterns, vehicle routing, and autonomous navigation.

Law: Ai can conduct legal research, review contracts for errors, streamline paperwork, and predict case outcomes to save lawyers time and strengthen arguments.

Agriculture: Ai can monitor crop and soil health, track livestock biometrics, estimate optimal harvest times, and customize plans to boost yields.

Security: In real-time, ai surveillance can identify threats, strange behaviors, and security anomalies. Ai cybersecurity defends against emerging attacks.

Manufacturing: Ai controls autonomous production, predicts equipment failures, optimizes supply chain logistics, and performs quality assurance checks.

Government: Ai can analyze citizen needs and complaints, allocate resources effectively, detect fraud, and provide interactive assistance.

Ai, specifically Large Language Models (LLMs), can be but one source of inspiration that is, maybe not divine, holy, or otherworldly but, as defined by Anthropic, a “…neural network trained on massive text datasets like books Wikipedia, and online writings to learn patterns and relationships in language from that broad content” all at the tip of your fingertips and only as good as you are at being a prompt engineer. These tools can become an integral part of an artist's arsenal. With its vast data repository and patterns, Ai can introduce an artist to myriad perspectives and ideas that might have remained hidden or undiscovered. It doesn't replace the artist but augments their capacities, broadening their horizons like a landscape artist going hiking for inspiration or a writer having a cigarette and overhearing an interesting conversation from afar.

Ai, like Claude, might suggest a setting, phrase, or character sketch that triggers a new direction for a story or a painting. This interaction can speed up the creative process, especially during those inevitable moments of artist's block. However, it's important to note that the output quality largely depends on the artist's interpretation and transformation of the AI's input. The AI can be considered a collaborative partner, offering ideas and options, but the artist is the decision-maker, filtering these inputs through their unique perspective and creative vision. It is there when you need it or want it and away the rest of the time, unlike the muse, which is only ever chased after, conjured up, or ventured to. See the example below where Bob Dylan wrote in “Goin to Acapulco”:

Now, whenever I get up

And I can't find what I need

I just make it down to Rose Marie's

And get something quick to eat

It's not a bad way to make a living

And I ain't complainin' none

Here, Dylan seems to be able to find what he needs and, being a songwriter and then commenting that it’s not a bad way to make a living, one could assume that Rose Marie is a source of inspiration or his muse at that moment in time.

I’m not making the case that Ai can replace Rose Marie. Nothing in this world can replace the smell of fresh air in the morning with a cigarette, sunshine, and a smile from a server who asks you how you would like your eggs. I’m not arguing that, but when an artist is looking for a spark, a spur to get them on a path toward their goal, most can’t just go to a cafe by the water in Acapulco, but what if they typed into Claude, give me a detailed scene of a cafe by the beach? What would you get?

The afternoon sun filtered through the woven bamboo roof, bathing the crowded cafe in a warm golden glow. Ceiling fans spun lazily above, doing little to cut through the thick, salty air that enveloped the patio. Squawking seagulls circled overhead, eyeing stray chips and crumbs on the wrought iron tables.
The cafe bustled with tourists seeking refuge from the heat. Sunburnt bodies glistened with a sheen of sweat and coconut oil, clothes clinging damply after a morning lounging beachside. Dark sunglasses were pushed up on foreheads or nestled in tangled, salt-crusted hair. Servers in white guayaberas shuffled between the tables, delivering jars of agua fresca, chilled cervezas, and plates of fresh ceviche swimming in lime juice.
A weathered guitarist strummed lively flamenco melodies from a corner table, his pandero drum syncopating each rhythm. Three young girls spun and stomped barefoot, their thin cotton dresses blossoming around their swaying forms like flowers unfurling under the rising moon. Beside them, an older woman tapped her cane in time, remembering days gone by.
Chatter bounced between tables in half a dozen languages - English, Spanish, German, Portuguese - the susurrus of a transient international crowd. But laughter needed no translation. It rang out unrestrained, fueled by afternoon drinks, the carefree atmosphere, and a shared relief at escaping this oasis away from the unforgiving world that awaited back home. For now, they had each other, the warmth of the Mexican sun, and a view of the glittering Pacific stretching to the horizon.

This is not a moment to copy and paste and submit this to a journal, but an effort to be inspired by what Claude offers you, as with the philosophers above, and act as both a conduit, an editor, and a writer simultaneously to produce something entirely your own. Every artist and writer could have stood in the fields Van Goh did. Still, only he could have re-produced those priceless paintings, which is so important to remember: LLMs are a tool, a utility that can be influenced and navigated to a place the creative artist never thought possible, but without the human behind that ship, nothing of substance, of soul, of reveal will come forth.

Of course, using Ai as a muse raises significant ethical considerations. Regarding originality, there's the question of whether using AI for inspiration dilutes the personal touch that defines an artist's work. If several artists use the same Ai tool, could there be a homogenization of ideas, diminishing the uniqueness and diversity of art? My opinion is no because, as I stated above, Van Goh is Van Goh because when he stood in the Wheat Fields near Auvers, that place, that muse, that inspiration moved him to make the priceless art he produced. Naturally, Ai also has the issue of accessibility. High-end Ai tools may not be affordable or accessible to all artists, potentially creating an uneven playing field where only those who can afford AI can access this creative edge. Still, as with Claude, Bard, and Chat GPT 3.5, they are all free, merely making the point of argument an issue of internet access which is continuously being worked on today.

Ultimately, there is no replacement for the artist, the writer, the creative, or you. Your perspective and will to create is the human experience and what every viewer wants to see and feel. How you get there on your path to creation remains the same, but it cannot be denied that it is also changing. To refuse that would be like ignoring those who rejected the typewriter to computer, gramophone to stereo to digital, and book to Kindle. They never went completely away, but their time, like all things, did pass.

In a world where Ai can simulate the ambiance of a Mexican cafe or interpret Shakespeare, we stand at the edge of a new era in creativity. If I’m stuck trying to find a word to rhyme with origami, I can ask Ai instead of waiting on the muse or racking my brain. Does the digital muse threaten to silence the organic whispers of inspiration, or does it amplify our inherent creative song? I suppose it depends on the artist, their willingness to take a helping hand or rely on themselves, but is the result any different? The answers lie not in the technology but in our ability to harness, mold, and change our definition of a muse, only to realize: there can be multitudes. That should be exciting! for the breadth of one's easel has become even deeper and more varied. Still, the question remains: will you let AI collaborate in your artistic journey, or will it merely be a bystander, watching from the sidelines? As with all artistic endeavors, the choice remains beautifully, defiantly, human.