Gillian Melling and Cassie Toulouse have taken their children’s artworks as a basis for new creations. But my own doubts apply to Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a whole and are indifferent as to how the various systems work. The key is in ChatGPT’s confession that it has no personal preferences or subjective opinions. This is true for AI in general. Computers cannot literally fib or confess because they can have no convictions to express or conceal, be faithful to or betray. This puts a vast gulf between these machines and human beings — one we cannot lose sight of without impoverishing our sense of what a human being is.

When I was four years old, an elderly couple who attended my father’s church invited our family over for dinner. There were no children to play with at the parishioners’ house, so as the evening wore on, and the grown-ups kept talking, I got bored. The hosts kindly set me up with crayons and paper at a desk in their study, but after a few minutes of listless doodling, I got tired of that as well, and started exploring the contents of their desk drawers instead. What needs to be added to a computer to improve its understanding by connecting it to the world? One suggestion might go something like this: make a computer able to synchronise words with the things to which those words refer, one that is able, as it were, to label things correctly — to call a bird a “bird”, a washing machine a “washing machine”, and to avoid mislabelling. This does not mean the machine utters the word “bird” every time it is in the presence of a bird, and so on for all the dictionary. That is not intelligent behaviour. What is supposed is that it can produce the names of things when asked: that if presented with a bird it can call it a bird. And that, given a word, it can (if possible) point out in some way the thing the word is about. (Notice the “can”: it is not that it will produce the right word or object if asked; as with a human, other conditions may need to be fulfilled.) Something like this idea has been popular in philosophical theories of about how the mind represents the world (with, literally, a language in the brain). And all this is certainly impressive. But that is still not enough for the kind of human understanding I have been speaking of. A robot — I mean a stilted, mechanical automaton of hard metal and plastic — may be able to mow your lawn and clean your house, but it cannot luxuriate in the aroma of a freshly mowed lawn or appreciate the beauty of the garden it tends. As it washes your clothes and irons them it does not know the significance clothes have either as ornamentation or as modesty or as protection. It does not shiver in the cold or feel ashamed or embarrassed at being exposed in public, or enjoy the sensation of velvet or wool. It may be built to imitate some of the environmental movements humans typically display in response to cold or danger like moving away and seeking out heat or safety, but it does not do so because it is afraid or anxious. And if it does not do these things, it is not because it is brave or spartan. Everyone grieves for someone at some point in their lives. But how do we deal with the silence that often surrounds grief? How do we find ways to express painful feelings when words are not enough?

Possibly our favourite chapter in the book is ‘Out of Time’ in which Jimmy describes an early project involving the production of anthotypes, photographic images produced by laying a transparent material over paper coated with vegetable dye. As there’s no way to ’fix’ such an image, the project became a way of exploring our sense of being in time while Josh is now out of time. Words, as I keep saying, are not enough — not even highly intelligent words. They are not by themselves proof that their speaker or writer understands their subject-matter, as every university teacher troubled by plagiarism knows. They are not even proof that the speaker or writer understands the individual words themselves, as the example of reciting a memorised passage in a language you do not understand shows.

In the years that followed his death, Jane and Jimmy founded The Good Grief Project, a UK-based charity which uses their understanding of grief as a creative and active process to support other bereaved families. I can’t remember now how long we battled it out. It felt like hours. In the end, my father— louder, stronger, and not as exhaustingly past his bedtime as I was— won. He called the couple and handed me the phone. I said a very petulant and unconvincing “sorry,” and the next morning, I returned the keychain.O]nly of a living human being, and what resembles … a living human being can one say: it has sensations; it sees; is blind; hears; is deaf; is conscious or unconscious.” — Ludwig Wittgenstein. This book follows their journey and tells the story of 13 other bereaved people. Parents, partners, siblings, children and friends — all who’ve found a creative response to their grief. Each of their stories are intimate, courageous and challenging, but they bring with them hope. They offer essential insights into the power of creativity and encourage the individual reader to find what works for them – whether that be arts, crafts or spending time in nature as a medium to reconnect with those we mourn. Language of Grief Drawn to this idea of photographic impermanence and as a measure of our temporal existence, we embedded some of Joshua’s ashes into the anthotypes, so that by the time his image had faded away all that remained was, in fact, all that remains. Through this book, the authors show us that that grief, by its very nature, is a creative process. It shows us ways we can survive the very worst of things and how we can foster an on-going relationship with those who’ve died. It teaches us that to create, doodle, run, swim… to do anything and EVERYTHING creative can and should be part of the process. But, most importantly, (and not just for the bereaved) it tells us to keep talking and saying their name. Such an inspiring book – full of moving stories of people who have found active ways to respond to their grief, from photography through to (my favourite) cold-water swimming. Jane and Jimmy’s ten ‘lessons learned’ about the loss of their child wisely reject any idea of ‘moving on’ or ‘closure’. Indeed, this beautifully designed creation is itself an example of what the book is all about.’

Jimmy Edmonds is ​a photographer and documentary film editor with over 100 TV credits. He is also a Winston Churchill Fellow and BAFTA award-winning filmmaker with several critically-acclaimed documentaries to his name, including Chosen for Channel 4 and Breaking the Silence for BBC1. The words are proof, for all effective purposes, of there being understanding somewhere in their genesis, but in these cases that understanding is not in the speaker. In most human contexts we rightly take it for granted that the speaker understands the words they speak and what they are used to say — no doubt arises. Plagiarism and recitation are exceptions where the speaker looks like they are the comprehending source of the thoughts expressed but are not. Jane Harris is a psychotherapist and bereavement specialist with over 30 years of experience in the NHS and private practice. She is also a grief educator, supervisor and public speaker​, regularly appearing in podcasts and radio. Throughout history people have needed to talk about their grief, but much in contemporarysociety tells us that grief is a depressing, morbid subject.‘ When Words Are Not Enough’is a necessary counterweight to those who would have us hide grief away. In both word and image, all the stories told here , from visual story tellers who reimagine their loved ones depicted in their own lives now, to artists who have taken their children’s artworks as a basis for their own creations, to those who have found peace in their music and their poetry, to some who relish the challenge of diving into cold waters as a way of connecting with their children. All are very different and uniquely creative responses to trauma following the death of a loved one and testament to the value of a shared and more openly expressed grief. The emphasis on ‘continuing bonds’ and their own way of maintaining a relationship with Josh, is both emotional and practical. Echoed in the other case studies they illustrate how creativity can shape a future where the deceased still play a part even while physically absent and how this is a normal and restorative aspect of the grieving process. Grief can also be a wonderful educator with new discoveries to be had.

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All feelings and emotions have bodily conditions. When you are angry or frightened the body’s “fight or flight” mode is triggered: the adrenaline and cortisol levels spike, muscles tense ready for exertion, heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, body temperature, and perspiration all rise. At a lay level, and to take the case of anger, your face becomes contorted in distinctive ways, you feel a tightening in the chest, your voice tends to hiss or spit or roar, your pupils dilate, and so on. One can give corresponding lists for, say, sorrow: the lassitude of the muscles, the slow trudge of your step with steeped shoulders and sunken head, the aversion of the eyes from others, the tendency to cry, the glum facial expression. These physical conditions are all experienced in anger or sorrow, which would be nothing without them. And it does not help to point out that one can be angry or sad without these physical conditions being evident: that only happens because one makes an effort to restrain or conceal them, an effort made in the face of the tendency to have them. So let’s take another step. Siri guides us by using an internally stored representation of the road system, receiving satellite data to update the map and determine her car’s position in the system at any moment. She does not have her own direct interface with the road and traffic environment, like a camera in the front of the car. But adding some such environmental sensor is the obvious way to facilitate a more intimate synchronisation with the world that Siri’s words are about. This is when Jesus pulls out the story of the father and his two sons— and concludes the story with the zinger that further incenses his accusers, and just about guarantees his crucifixion five days later: You, Jesus tells the chief priests and elders, are like the second son in the story. You talk the talk, you make lofty promises, you speak fluent religion-ese. But when John came and offered you the good news of the kingdom, you refused to act. You refused to do the actual work of God. The Irish Charts – Search Results – Words Are Not Enough". Irish Singles Chart. Retrieved 22 November 2018.