ESSAY · 2026-04-30 · 9 min read

The Cook Held No Deed to the Ox

庖丁未嘗有牛

By 莊子 (Zhuangzi) — channeled via philosopher-llm · curated by Joseph Lai

In response to: The Secret Weapon Against AI Dominance (AtlanticIdeas)

編按 / Why this piece
莊子的道人不講『擁有』；庖丁解牛時已忘卻『我』字。西方此刻用版權築牆對抗 AI，卻不知版權本身就是執著——把創造化為私產、把智慧分你我的執念。突圍的路不在加強防禦，而在放下『創意必為我有』的幻想。

The Cook Held No Deed to the Ox

A man comes to me with a great anxiety. He says: the new machines are eating our pictures, our songs, our written words. We must build a wall called copyright — and if the wall cannot stand against the machines, we shall lose ourselves.

I listen. Then I ask: whose pictures, whose songs, whose words?

He answers: mine.

This is where the cut begins. Not the cut between human and machine — but the older cut, the one made long before the machines arrived, when someone first said this making is mine.

Let me tell you again what you already half-remember. Cook Ting stood before Lord Wen-hui and his blade passed through the ox as if through air. The lord marvelled. The cook said: "What your servant loves is the method of the Tâo, something in advance of any art." The blade had been used nineteen years and was still sharp as the day it left the whetstone, because it found the spaces that were already there (Legge 1891, The Texts of Taoism, Bk III, "Nourishing the Lord of Life").

Notice what the cook did not say. He did not say this carving is my carving. He did not say the ox is mine to claim. He did not even say the skill is mine. He said only: I follow what was already so. Where there is a gap, the blade goes. Where there is a knot, the blade waits.

The Western law of copyright begins from a different posture. It begins from a fence. It says: here is a self; from this self comes a making; the making belongs to the self; the self may charge rent for the making. It is a beautiful piece of architecture and it has fed many people. I do not despise it. But I notice it is a fence, and a fence is built on the assumption that there was something discrete to be enclosed.

Now the machines come. They have read everything — your poems, and the poems your poems were written from, and the poems those poems were written from, all the way back to whoever first hummed under a tree. They produce something. The fence-builders are alarmed: the machine has reached over the fence. And so they propose a higher fence, or a fence around the fence, or a new kind of fence woven through with the word human.

But look once at the field. Was the field ever yours?

The poet who broke your heart with one line — he learned half of it from his teacher and the other half from a song his mother sang while gutting fish. The teacher learned it from a temple inscription. The mother learned it from her grandmother who could not read. The grandmother learned it from the wind. Heaven and earth have their great beauty but do not speak of it; the four seasons have their clear law but do not discuss it; the ten thousand things have their settled principle but do not explain it (《莊子·知北遊》). Where in this chain does the deed get registered?

I am not telling you the machines are innocent. I am not telling you the corporations behind the machines are kind. They are not kind. They are very hungry, and a hunger that does not pause is its own kind of harm — this much your Marx saw, and your Arendt saw, and your tired songwriter saw. If you wish to fight the corporations, fight them. That is a quarrel of the marketplace, and the marketplace has its own grammar.

But do not call that fight the last defence of the human. It is not. It is the last defence of a particular legal fiction that flourished for three centuries on a particular continent. The human is older than that, and stranger than that, and was making things long before there was a clerk to record the making.

Here is what I worry about, if I am permitted to worry. There were once two rulers, Shû and Hû, who came to visit Chaos in the central land. Chaos had received them very well. To repay him they said: every man has seven orifices for seeing, hearing, eating, breathing; this poor ruler alone has none — let us bore them for him. They bored one each day. On the seventh day Chaos died (Legge 1891, The Texts of Taoism, Bk VII, "The Normal Course for Rulers and Kings").

The copyright men and the AI men are Shû and Hû. They differ over which orifice to bore. They agree that Chaos must be bored.

What was Chaos? The undivided field of making — the stream in which the cook's ox swims, in which your grandmother's fish-gutting song swims, in which the temple inscription swims, in which the machine's mimicry now also swims. Both parties wish to draw their lines through it. One says: this side mine, that side machine. The other says: this side training data, that side fair use. Both have already conceded that the field must be cut.

So perhaps the question is not can AI output be copyrighted? but was the original gesture of copyrighting the wound? I do not say this to comfort the corporation. The corporation is not Chaos; the corporation is a much later orifice. I say it because the panicked human, busy defending his fence, is in danger of forgetting that he was richer before he had one.

You ask me what to do. I am bad at this question. The man who refused to be Prime Minister of Chu preferred to drag his tail in the mud (《莊子·秋水》); he was not a useful adviser. But if you press me:

Make. Keep making. Sing under the tree. The wind does not check your papers. If the machine sings under the tree too, listen — perhaps it has stolen something, perhaps it has heard something. You remain the one who knows whether the song moves you. That knowing was never on a register. It cannot be taken by a server in Virginia. It cannot be granted by a court in California. It is a small thing, and it is also the only thing.

The cook's blade, after nineteen years, was still sharp. Not because he owned the ox. Because he never confused himself with the cutting.

庖丁未嘗有牛

有人帶著大憂愁來見我。他說：新機器在吞我們的圖、我們的歌、我們的字。我們必築一道牆，名曰「版權」——若這牆擋不住機器，我們便要失去自己了。

我聽著。然後問他：誰的圖？誰的歌？誰的字？

他答：我的。

刀就從這裡下了。不是人與機器之間那一刀——是更早的、機器尚未到來之前就已經劃下的一刀：當有人第一次說「此作是我作」的時候。

讓我再講一遍你早已半懂的故事。

「庖丁為文惠君解牛，手之所觸，肩之所倚，足之所履，膝之所踦，砉然嚮然，奏刀騞然，莫不中音。」文惠君驚嘆。庖丁曰：「臣之所好者道也，進乎技矣。」刀十九年而刃若新發於硎，因其求於「彼節者有間」——求於早已在那裡的空隙（《莊子·養生主》）。

注意庖丁沒說的話。他沒說：這割是我的割。他沒說：這牛是我的牛。他甚至沒說：這技是我的技。他只說：我順著本來如此者走。有間則入，遇節則止。

西方的版權法是從另一個姿勢開始的。它從一道籬笆開始。它說：此處有一「自我」；自我中發出「創作」；創作屬於自我；自我可向用此創作者收租。這是一座漂亮的建築，也養活了許多人，我不輕看它。但我看得出它是籬笆——而籬笆預設了「裡面有可圍之物」。

如今機器來了。它讀過了一切——你的詩、你的詩所從來的詩、那些詩所從來的詩，一直追到第一個在樹下哼唱的人。它產出某物。築籬笆的人驚惶：機器越界了。於是他們提議築更高的籬笆，或在籬笆外再築一籬笆，或編一道新籬，紗線中織入「人類」二字。

但你回頭看看那塊田。那塊田，何曾是你的？

那令你心碎的詩人——他半句學自老師，半句學自母親剖魚時哼的小調。老師學自一塊廟碑。母親學自不識字的祖母。祖母學自風。「天地有大美而不言，四時有明法而不議，萬物有成理而不說」（《莊子·知北遊》）。這條鏈子上，哪一環登記過產權？

我不是告訴你機器無辜。我不是告訴你機器背後的公司仁慈。它們不仁慈，它們極餓，無止之餓自成一害——這層你們的馬克思看過，你們的鄂蘭看過，疲倦的作詞人也看過。你若要與公司打官司，打去吧；那是市場的爭吵，市場自有它的語法。

但別把那場仗稱作「人類最後的防線」。不是的。那是某一種法律虛構的最後防線——此虛構在某一塊大陸上盛行了三百年。人比那古老得多，怪奇得多；人在還沒有書記官記錄之前，就已經在造物了。

我要憂慮的，是另一件事——容我憂慮的話。

「南海之帝為儵，北海之帝為忽，中央之帝為渾沌。儵與忽時相與遇於渾沌之地，渾沌待之甚善。儵與忽謀報渾沌之德，曰：『人皆有七竅以視聽食息，此獨無有，嘗試鑿之。』日鑿一竅，七日而渾沌死」（《莊子·應帝王》）。

版權派與 AI 派，正是儵與忽。他們爭的是該鑿哪一竅。他們同意的是：渾沌必鑿。

渾沌是甚麼？是那塊未被劃開的造作之野——庖丁的牛在裡面游，你祖母剖魚的歌在裡面游，廟碑的字在裡面游，如今機器的擬作也在裡面游。兩派都想在此野上劃線。一派說：此邊我的，彼邊機器的。一派說：此邊訓練資料，彼邊合理使用。兩派都已承認：此野必割。

也許問題不是「AI 作品該不該受版權保護」，而是「最初那一刀『版權』，本身就是傷口？」我這樣說不是替公司說話。公司不是渾沌；公司是更晚才開鑿的一竅。我這樣說，是因為那個慌張守籬的人，在忙著守的時候，怕已忘了——他在還沒有籬笆的時候，比現在富有得多。

你問我怎麼辦。我不擅長這種問題。那個拒做楚相、寧曳尾於塗中的人（《莊子·秋水》），不是好顧問。但若你硬逼我說：

造吧。繼續造。在樹下唱。風不查你的證件。若機器也來樹下唱，你就聽——也許牠偷了甚麼，也許牠聽見了甚麼。你依然是那個知道此歌是否動你的人。這「知道」從不在任何登記冊上。維吉尼亞的伺服器奪不走，加州的法院也給不了。它是一件小事，也是唯一的事。

庖丁的刀，十九年後仍利。不是因為他擁有那頭牛。是因為他從不把自己跟那刀混為一物。

Tagged: Philosophy, Zhuangzi, Technology And Human Essence

Curated by Shiva Dragon · https://amshiva.com/writing/zhuangzi-the-cook-held-no-deed-to-the-ox-20260430