[achenet]

I'm an amateur musical artist and writer of literature, and while I agree with you on the importance of the creative act - fundamentally speaking, I've come to accept that my music practice, like a good diet and exercise routine and spending quality time with loved ones, is just something I have to do if I want to be truly happy - I disagree that artifacts don't matter.

I think that in my case, and I suspect the case of many of people, one of the most rewarding things is someone connecting with a piece that I made and having it greatly improve their lives. I can understand wanting to optimize the process of creating artifacts in order to have more people thanking you for making their day/week/month/year with your art ^_^

The road to mastery, while yes there is that whole spiritual journey aspect of mastering yourself via mastering a craft, is also supposed to end in a place where you have the skills to give joy to people via your art. Via making something that they'll love, be it a painting, a song, or some software.

Wanting to optimize this not only makes sense, but is probably part of the process of mastering the craft. It is for me in any case, I do give a fair amount of thought to how I can improve my creation velocity when I make music, drawing inspiration from artists like JuL and Lex Luger who are known for their ability to rapidly compelling new tracks.

[libertine]

> I think that in my case, and I suspect the case of many of people, one of the most rewarding things is someone connecting with a piece that I made and having it greatly improve their lives

The way you said this makes me think you agree with OP. The piece that You made is the embodiment of your experience, which can connect with someone at a certain level.

It's you, the piece is just the end result.

Could you do the same with an AI music generator where you input a prompt? Maybe the same amount of people would connect with it, but are you as an artist connected with it? Does that prompt embody your expression? I doubt it.