What is the meaning of life?
I sparked hundreds of random encounters across New York City. Some lasted seconds, others hours. Most were strangers, a few were friends. Wandering the boroughs with just a notebook and a naive grin, I asked each person one question: What is the meaning of life?
Recognizing that we will reexamine our deepest questions in the wake of AI’s ascendance, I set up a small experiment. What do robots make of life’s meaning? I entered what I’d heard from strangers on the street directly into the frontier text-to-image models.
Heartbeats are friction and vibration. Everything from the earth has a frequency, its own song. Shaped by experiences, improvisations. Some dance with flower petals. Others dance with blades. The goal is to find the flow in each moment and dance to your song.
For all we know, we are given this one breath, this one moment on earth, this one footprint in time. It’s an opportunity and a responsibility. To seize it, we must be curious about it, to explore and experience it fully. But in doing so, we must not tread on anyone else’s. Leave them space to carve their own path. And leave space for future footprints.
In India if you talk to a stranger, they will engage and respond to your question. It’s part of the culture. When I first got to New York, I was riding the subway and turned to the man next to me and asked, “How was your day?” He brushed me off, murmured that he was busy. I spent the next hour wondering what I did wrong and why I had bothered him. I was discouraged but I vowed not to stop trying. I believe everyone should talk to everyone. That’s what makes us human. Life is connection.
Life is about not allowing other people to tell you what it means. To learn to listen to yourself. I spend a lot of time doing my own research to make sure I’m not buying into other people’s narratives.
If you observe the world closely enough, you’ll see a void. Fill it.
I don’t know. That’s the truth. I think life is a process of growing self-awareness. Every day your goal is to wake up a little more of yourself. A little more aware of how you interact with the world around you and your impact on others. If you think you know all the answers, you’re lost. If you approach life with humility and an unquenchable curiosity, you’ll find your way.
To improve humanity, we need to be curious and never stop learning. I heard a story about a banker who woke up one day and decided to become a poet. And no one questioned him for it.
I’m a professional dancer. But I started taking a computer programming class and am going to become a developer. This is the magic of New York City. You can be whoever you want to be. And you can change whenever you want.
Inside you'll find the results from my experiment - a stranger's meaning paired with a robot's visual reaction. Scenic narratives are woven in as intermittent waypoints to share a few of the most vivid moments on my journey.
I brought this book into physical form with my friends at Grafiche Milani, a century-old Italian printer, whose craftsmen and women helped give birth to icons like Assouline. Together, we’ve housed the project in an object worthy of the wisdom drawn from the community. Cloth-wrapped and smyth-sewn, silk-screened and blind-debossed, this book stands alone on the coffee table as art itself.
Matt
Pat
Cory
Carol
Ali
Maddie
Maya
