As we prepare to sell the house, I've been thinking a lot about my father - he helped lay the pine floorboards, the gazebo, remove and instal windows.

I remember him on the front deck, the last time he visited - a suprise, because he was so ill the fact they drove out here blew our minds. He hobbled across the front lawn and we helped him onto the deck and we all sat in the sunshine.

I remember the day he came to say the cancer was back. This would be part of a seven year story of cancer - two sorts, no less, and many treatments, one of which was utterly successful until mesothelioma slipped in to finish him off.

Note the red wine in the photograph. We're all laughing. I don't remember it as a sad day - they were so cheerful about it. Dad's so relaxed - look at his hands behind his head. The photo doesn't quite convey the hope though, something my parents were very good at. My parents were very, very good at hope. Not delusional, wishful thinking, but choosing not to focus their minds to the worst case scenario. It was like they made a shared decision to focus on the good and live their lives as if one day, they could exhale because Dad would be cancer free.

He was buried in that shirt.

I had the beginnings of a post in my mind about this - I wanted to talk about hope, and how it's a choice to make in a world that's constantly grim and dark. Dad would always say 'when I'm better' or 'when I beat this thing' - even in the last week of his life, fully aware he was going to die, and wanting to because he was in terrible, terrible pain, he said 'if I beat this thing I might go to the Cook Islands again'. The man was an inspiration on not only how to live, but how to die.

I felt uncomfortable about sharing this image online, not least because it's blurry, so I thought perhaps I could replicate it with the help of Chat GPT prompt which I could put into Midjourney.

The AI did a reasonable (and matter of fact) job of describing it.

A cozy, warmly lit living room in a timber-framed house with polished wooden floors and natural light coming through large windows. A man and a woman sit on a black leather couch the man is relaxed, arms behind his head, wearing a plaid shirt over a t-shirt and grey pants, legs crossed casually. The woman beside him is smiling, wearing a scarf and dark cardigan, leaning slightly forward. The couch is decorated with patterned cushions. In the background is an open kitchen with wooden benchtops, fruit bowl, and a steel range hood. Visible elements include a telescope by the window, a colorful woven basket, hanging pendant lights, framed pictures, and shelves full of books. A guitar leans against a wall in the far back. There’s a small side table in the foreground with a nearly empty wine glass on it. Natural, homely, relaxed atmosphere. photographic style

Midjourney's response was this. There was four photographs but this one will do for illustrative purposes. I chose this one as it was pretty wild that the cushion is the same pattern as my Moroccan rug, which isn't in the photo. Eery. I also like the celing and the feel of he house. But AI always seems to default to youth if you don't specify the ages. Still, it's realistic - if you weren't discerning, you'd almost think it was a real couple in a photoshoot for an alternative living magazine. Hell, I want to be that couple.

When I asked to specify the age, here's what I got. Again, cool house - maybe a little more expensive, since they're boomers - the beams in the roof are more expensive looking, and there are other details too, like the tiled splashback, the telescope, the art on the walls, the large windows that let in light. AI Dad is now wearing glasses - because the tech is creating images from patterns that say 'old men wear glasses'. He looks relaxed, and happy, and perhaps a little contemplative of his own coming death, but feeling hopeful anyway. Life is good.

But it's not my father. This created man will not be buried in a blue flannel shirt (a flanno, in Australia) unless I prompt him too. Which makes me wonder whether we're in a simulation and we're being prompted in every aspect of our lives, even writing this post. In which case, I hope I get prompted to live in a house like this which is probably worth more on the market than my own.

Pulling the photograph directly into Midjourney, I'm given four alternatives, so what they hell, I said, gimme all four versions. It strikes me, perhaps, that I am looking for my father. Perhaps he exists on another plane. Perhaps I will have more evidence he still exists anywhere, even in digital spaces. What a tragic I am - although anyone who has lost anyone they loved so deeply will at least in part understand.

The houses get more expensive, though. The views become gorgeous. Midjourney is creating part of my dream, at least. The woman wears my red scarf. The wine is white. These people are not ill, and will not die. When they resell this house to move to the coast they will sell it for 4 million AUD. They will have a house with a sea view.

When they are a little older they will sit with their daughter and perhaps tell them other news - that they are headed to the Cook Islands next week, or that they are rebuilding the kitchen with marble instead of the stone that causes silicosis. PErhaps the mother is doing that botanical art class the father always wanted her to do, even buying her good pencils and a sketch book she keeps in a drawer. Perhaps the father is drawing up the plans for the dream architectural house he always wanted.

I am a human, projecting. The AI is not human, constructing images from data sets.

The AI has captured one pattern it sees across all of humanity - couples leaning in to each other, clearly in love, warm and cosy in living spaces, captured in moments of togetherness. Recognising the basic pattern of my house, it returns what my house has always wanted to be - grander than it is, more resellable.

This is a house that people love, and are happy in. A house people share moments in.

I wonder if the AI father has driven over the gum tree that their son in law has just planted. Whether he drives very slowly down the driveway not to chip the paint on his VW van. Whether he insists his daughter play a song he loves on Youtube. Whether he picks up the guitar he fave me and plucks a tune one recognises because he's not very good. Whether he tells his family stories they have all heard before. Whether he draws mud maps of house plans or directions to places. Whether he takes a second helping of his wife's orange cake with extra dollops of cream. Whether he tells his family that it's only money, and not to worry about it.

Whether the AI fathers will get bleach stains on the blue flannel shirt. .
It does not matter - even if the AI is prompted to do write these stories and create images and videos of men who mirror my father, they cannot possibly capture him or recreate him.

AI runs on patterns - it is constructing a version based on everything it has been fed. Perhaps, with the right prompting, it can perfectly recreate this photo, have my parents move within the frame, speak to me using my father's speech (though I doubt it - there's so little of my father's voice in videos or phone messages) - perhaps I will see him holographically crossing the room to punch me in the arm and tell me not to be so emotional.

But we're missing something, aren't we, if we hope that somehow AI can recreate the people we lost, that they can give them new life or extended lives beyond their death.

We're missing the fact that we love people so much precisely because one day we will lose them, even if we don't fully know it yet, even if we think they're immortal or they'll always be in our lives.

In our grim dark hearts we know that all men must die, and that we better hold on tightly and love hard now, when the flesh is still animated, vibrant, alive.

We can't prompt life, even if we long to.

With Love,

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