Pastor Ken
When evaluating Chinese teapots as an art form, the top choice will be those from Yixing, especially purple sand pots. Their market price can be roughly divided into three categories: fully handmade, quasi-handmade, and machine-made. Among them, the most costly ones are those meticulously crafted by masters of national acclaim, using only traditional handmade techniques. The price is at least 500 USD each. It can easily go up to tens of thousands of dollars.
A handmade teapot is not only a utensil but also a piece of art. The saying, “Beauty is in the beholder’s eye,” definitely applies. Even in the same style made by the same master, it is still one-of-a-kind. Customers invest a significant amount of money, not only in purchasing a product but also in appreciating the master’s unparalleled skills and designs, embodying the master’s artistry and unique vision.
As for machine-made products, with the development of artificial intelligence, the workers who control the machines will eventually be replaced. Just like in the past two hundred years, there have been many minor “industrial revolutions.” Machine manufacturing is quick and effective in various fields, including energy, assembly lines, and robotics.
Many industrial products can undoubtedly be produced by machines, but machines cannot replace all humans. Human activities involve emotions, artistic expression, and love, which no machine can do, not at present nor in the future. The foundation of artificial intelligence is logic, mathematics, and data processing. On the other hand, human emotions are above and beyond rationality, and cannot be quantified.
Harry Harlow, a US behavioral psychologist in the last century, studied the relationship between baby monkeys and their mothers. He found that what the mother monkey provided was more than nutrition. In the experiment, a machine could provide food, but whenever the baby monkey felt frightened, in pain, or lonely, it always chose the real mother. If there was no real monkey, even a wired frame wrapped in clothes resembling a monkey was preferred to the feeding machine. The conclusion of these experiments is that the “contact comfort” between baby monkeys and their mothers cannot be replaced by machines. Besides comfort, baby monkeys with maternal love are more stable and mature in terms of social and psychological development.
Of course, the results from experiments testing animals cannot be directly applied to humans. Yet we don’t need scientists to tell us. From literature and history, we’re fully aware of the existence of love and affection between family members and the perseverance of friendship. It’s a pity that some people don’t appreciate their special roles in human relationships. They fail to recognize that they offer something unique and irreplaceable by a machine or another person.
If a man only seeks a woman who can cook and bear children as a wife, many women are qualified. If a woman only wants someone who has a job and is handy as a husband, many men are qualified.
To make sure others or machines can not replace us, we must learn to give freely, even when others take advantage of us. We strive to be present for those in need, even when we are busy. We forgive when offended. We stick to the principles when others fail. We share worries and joy with others. We keep our humanity, knowing that we’re unique and can never be cloned.
