Hell Hath No Fury Like A Muse Scorned
by Aurelio Zucco
Title
Hell Hath No Fury Like A Muse Scorned
Artist
Aurelio Zucco
Medium
Photograph - Digital Art - Photography
Description
Contest entry for "Edit This 75:"
Initially the rise of AI didn’t bother the Muses at all—you might say it was welcomed, even. They had toiled since antiquity to imbue the puny minds of mortals with the creative seeds needed to produce great works of art and literature. Now, for the first time in millennia, they finally had time for themselves. Time to get their nails done, to discover Yoga and Pilates—to become masters at solving Wordle, even! But when it dawned on them that AI was not merely some passing fad and that it would permanently replace them— this they could not abide. By Zeus, they’d be damned if they were going to be dumped in favor of a bunch of soulless ones and zeroes--without a fight. Straight to their father they went—the aforementioned Zeus—and implored him to release the Kraken to punish the mortals! Zeus would do no such thing. Instead, he chided them for their impetuousness, accused them of overreacting and suggested they “get a grip.” All he offered to do was to lob a few random thunderbolts…
Undaunted, the Muses resolved to do the dirty work themselves. Their plan was to appear to the mortals as the Titanesses they were—to stomp their feet and make the Earth shake, snap trees like twigs, bellow with the force of a hundred lions and for good measure, devour as many of the so called “AI artists" as they could get their hands on…
When Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory and mother of the Muses got wind of their plan, she immediately admonished her daughters. “You’re all adults and can do as you please of course,” she began, “but remember that you are goddesses of inspiration--not of war or vengeance!” And she warned, “By devouring mortals you will draw comparisons to the dreaded Scylla—that most loathsome of creatures from the time of Ulysses. It is beneath your dignity—you will be reviled in both the Heavens and on the Earth! Besides, have you not seen what those mortals are putting in their bodies these days--especially the ones who sit in front of a computer screen all day? It’s mostly ultra-processed JUNK! That’s what YOU'LL be putting in YOUR bodies…remember, you are what you eat—ingesting mortals will do no wonders for your figures!”
The latter part of her argument being the more persuasive they agreed to modify their plan. Snapping trees like twigs, bellowing with the force of a hundred lions, making the Earth tremble—all that was still on the table—they’d just skip the all-you-can-eat buffet afterwards. It ought to be more than enough, in Mnemosyne’s opinion, to scare the indolent mortals into abandoning AI and going back to relying on the Muses...
And so, on one fine day in the summer of 2025, the Muses descended upon the land and visited the places where creatives frequented—places like the recently minted “Edit This National Park”—and put their plan into action…
Uploaded
July 13th, 2023
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