
Sukhan Fahm
07-12-2024
A talk given by Pushpendra Nath Misra at NID, Ahmedabad in October 2024, as part of their Alpavirama festival.

Human beings are sense-making organisms, but only occasionally and probably that’s what makes them creative.
I have been thinking about how sensitivity is creativity; about data and wisdom, about AI and human creativity. In ‘Mirza Ghalib’, a serial written and directed by Gulzaar saab, an old man bumps into young Asad (Ghalib) on the street and Asad says – dekh ke nahi chalta buddhe? (watch it old man) The old man says – buzurgon se iss tarah baat karte hain? (Are these any manners to speak to the elderly?). To which Asad replies in the form of a verse from the poet Sheikh Sadi – Buzargi, b-akla-ast, Na b-Saal. Tavangarii, b-dil-ast, Na b-maal (wisdom is borne of a sharp mind and it does not come from experience alone. To be wealthy, one should be large-hearted and not merely rich).
Buzurgi akl se hoti hai saalon se nahi. So data cannot create intelligence. Apne anubhavon ka navneet jab hum nikalte hain, usse wisdom kehte hain (the essence of our experiences is wisdom). Usse hum poetry kehte hain (we call it poetry). Anwar Masood mazahiya shayar hain Pakistan ke unki ek line hai ki – Tarbzabe ka byproduct hai shayari (Anwar Massood a Pakistani poet has said – Poetry is the byproduct of our life experiences).
I am talking about the creative output of AI – prose, poetry, stories. While AI is an extremely capable and powerful tool and can build worlds, render in-betweens for animation, make content management and delivery systems, it cannot be very creative, in the true sense of the word. AI is based on programming and a good creative product is unpredictable and unique. AI also does not have any pain-centre. To have empathy, one must have the capacity to feel pain, only then can one feel the pain of others. So AI can pretend to know our pain but can never know our pain as a fellow human being can. I am reminded of a poem by Vinod Shukla that describes empathy so beautifully –
Hatasha se ek vyakti baith gaya tha
A man sat down with dejection
Vyakti ko mai nahin jaanta tha, hatasha ko jaanta tha
I did not know the man, I knew dejection
Iss-liye mai uss vyakti ke paas gaya
Thus I went close to the man
Mera haanth pakad kar wah khada hua
He rose holding my hand
Mujhe wah nahin jaanta tha
He did not know me
Mere haanth badhaane ko jaanta tha
He knew my helping hand
Hum dono saath chalay
We walked together
Dono ek doosre ko nahin jaante thie
We did not know each other
Saath chalne ko jaante thie
We knew companionship
–
When similar sounding and surface level stories are all around us, it is time to live more deeply; feel and discern more. If we can learn to appreciate nuances, then we can live more deeply. Learning to be more sensitive is learning to be more creative. There is a phrase in the Urdu language Sukhan-fahm (Sukhan: Means poetry or words, Fahm: Means comprehension or understanding). It has a wonderful meaning – ‘someone who understands the depth of what is being said’. It is the time for the audiences to change and to be Sukhan-Fahm!