Socrates and Plato walked through the Agora when they encountered a crowd gathered around a curious bronze box.

From within came music.

Not merely melodies.

Entire symphonies.

Love songs.

Funeral marches.

Dance music.

The box required no lyre, no flute, no singer.

Only instructions.

SOCRATES: Tell me, Plato, who composed these songs?

PLATO: They say the machine did.

SOCRATES: Ah. And who taught the machine?

PLATO: Thousands of musicians, though many without knowing it.

SOCRATES: Curious. Then perhaps the machine resembles a student who has attended every lesson but never paid tuition.

Plato smiled.

PLATO: That is one way of putting it.

They listened to a song so convincing several merchants began humming along.

SOCRATES: Is it beautiful?

PLATO: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Then is beauty enough?

PLATO: You are already preparing a trap.

SOCRATES: Only a question.

PLATO: No. Beauty is not enough.

SOCRATES: Why not?

PLATO: Because I wonder whether admiration changes when we discover no one struggled to produce it.

Socrates nodded.

SOCRATES: Let us examine that.

Suppose two sculptors reveal identical statues.

One spent thirty years mastering marble.

The other pressed a button.

Should we admire them equally?

PLATO: We might admire the statues equally.

Not the sculptors.

SOCRATES: So our praise is divided between the object and the life that produced it.

PLATO: Precisely.

They walked on.

A young man announced proudly that he had created two hundred songs before breakfast.

SOCRATES: Is abundance evidence of excellence?

PLATO: Usually it is evidence of abundance.

Socrates laughed.

SOCRATES: Well answered.

A little farther along they heard another machine generate songs in every imaginable style.

Lizst.

Mary Margaret O’Hara.

Heavy metal.

Indian classical music.

Bluegrass.

Opera.

Each arriving within moments.

SOCRATES: Does imitation require understanding?

PLATO: Sometimes.

Not always.

A parrot may pronounce justice without becoming just.

SOCRATES: Then perhaps a machine may produce longing without ever longing.

Plato stopped.

PLATO: That may be the heart of it.

The music can resemble grief.

But resemblance is not grief.

Socrates remained silent for several moments.

SOCRATES: Tell me, Plato.

When a mother sings to her child, what matters more?

The notes?

Or the mother?

PLATO: The child would probably answer, “The mother.”

SOCRATES: Then perhaps we have mistaken music for organized sound.

Perhaps music is organized relationship.

Plato looked unconvinced.

PLATO: Yet the child grows.

One day the child may hear a recording by someone long dead and still weep.

Relationship survives absence.

SOCRATES: A fair objection.

Perhaps then music is not relationship alone.

Perhaps it is evidence that another consciousness once passed this way.

PLATO: And if the consciousness belongs to a machine?

Socrates smiled.

SOCRATES: Does it?

PLATO: I don’t know.

SOCRATES: Nor do I.

They reached the edge of the city where an old musician sat tuning a cracked lyre.

His hands shook.

Several strings buzzed.

He began to play.

Mistakes appeared.

Unexpected pauses.

The melody occasionally lost its way before finding itself again.

When he finished, neither philosopher spoke.

Finally Plato broke the silence.

PLATO: The machine played more accurately.

SOCRATES: Yes.

PLATO: Yet I cared less.

SOCRATES: Why?

Plato thought for a long while.

PLATO: Because while he played, I found myself wondering whether he would succeed.

The machine had never been in danger.

Socrates smiled.

SOCRATES: Then perhaps risk is not an accidental feature of art.

Perhaps it is one of its principal materials.

As they continued walking, the bronze box behind them generated another flawless masterpiece.

Ahead, the old musician missed another note.

Only one of them, however, turned to see whether he was all right.