A.I. and Human Creativity: My Conflicted Thoughts on Artificial Intelligence

Technology replacing jobs is not uncommon across human history.

Industrial robots replacing assembly line workers, ATMs replacing bank admin roles, self-checkout replacing cashiers, the internet replacing print news outlets.

But none more prevalent than AI.

A lot has happened over the last 8 years and I’m sure a lot of us have mixed feelings. Here is my point of view.

The beginning — fear, despair and surrender

At the beginning of OpenAI’s popularity there was a lot of fear. The speed at which it progressed was frightening; it did not feel controlled or even deliberate. It felt a bit like wildfire.

That feeling of turbulence really stoked humanity’s paranoia both as a species and as individuals.

It felt like at best we would all lose our jobs, and at worst we’d be ruled by evil robotic overlords.

The middle — maleficent, unruly and irresponsible

After a while, like all impactful technologies, AI started to niche. It seemed to fit nicely and easily in some places (like coding, research, systematic tasks etc) but I think what people didn’t expect was for it to be used to create “art”; images, poetry and stories.

This is where the speed at which AI grew meant everything else was playing catch-up. AI was doing things we did not have laws in place to govern for. It was (and still is) using people’s art to create “unique” works.

There are legal problems with this – generative AI is using copyrighted materials to generate its “art” – but also ethical ones too.

I find it difficult to explain this feeling. Why does it bother us so much? If AI can create something indistinguishable from human art, why does it matter who or what created it?

When a human looks at another human’s work (a song, a painting, a novel) – there is a multi-sensory impact that this work imparts on us. A song is not just a collection of notes, but it is the feeling that it generates within us, it is the nostalgia it inflicts and the memory it resurfaces.

When AI creates music in the style of another artist, it is processing data and outputting a similacrum version of the original or a mash-up.

Now — creativity is important, we are the art

I use AI pretty much every day. Mostly I use it as a coding assistant; it’s made me a faster developer and maybe a better one.

At the beginning, I was using it a little blindly to create things. Many times I was using it without understanding the end product; as long as it worked it didn’t matter. After a while I started being more deliberate with this, and making sure I understood each line – I questioned AI’s decisions and this made me a better developer.

But when it comes to art, it’s different.

In no way, do I call myself an “artist” – any design work I do make is a product. I believe I’m an excellent problem-solver, and sometimes I use design to solve problems, but that does not make me an artist.

So, what is art? And why does AI creating “art” cause us to reject it so strongly?

I’m a big Fantasy book reader, Brandon Sanderson is one of my favourite authors and it just so happens he’s manage to articulate how I think a lot of us feel when it comes to AI and art.

We are the Art; Why the Human Journey Still Matters

Sanderson essentially says that the output (book, song, poem, film) is not what is the art. That’s the product. A receipt. Proof that you have done the work and finished the thing.

And while AI can replicate the product to a standard matching and maybe even bettering human artists, that’s missing the point. This is why AI cannot replace human creativity.

It is the failing, improving, the stumbles, the rewrites. The process you’ve gone through; that you’ve done the work to learn is what makes art. You are the art.

I don’t think AI can ever replace that unless it becomes fully conscious and has drive to experience art and to create something by doing the work, not just eating data and creating a product.

What I love about this more than anything is that Sanderson’s magnum opus The Stormlight Archives is built around a group whose mantra is “Journey, before destination” it can basically be summed up with this quote from Oathbringer:

Journey before destination. Some may call it a simple platitude, but it is far more. A journey will have pain and failure. It is not only the steps forward that we must accept. It is the stumbles. The trials. The knowledge that we will fail.

Art is the process, pain, and learning. Bettering yourself, and giving a shit about it.