The Enduring Value of Human Creativity in a World of AI

At the moment I’m writing, there’s probably a new AI tool that’s going to create more amazing photos, videos, art whatever. Stuff that looks like created by a human. I know AI is the future. But what will become of creatives? If all we have to do is prompt for instant gratification – look what I made!! Did you really?? Living in a world where everything you want is served on a plate, and my brain is in constant snooze mode? To deplete itself.

We’ll stop using our brains to create. Creativity is what makes me a human, an artist, an author, a writer. For sure, AI can help with new ideas and rewriting my website for SEO. It can handle everything mundane. I wish it could help me with some domestic chores as well.

As humans, our brains develop through learning. We challenge ourselves and yes, it’s bloody painful to learn something new but there’s a reward at the end!

In a world where there’s no space for learning, giving us time to find our way through complicated stuff. Where I have to be on productive mode all the time. What about rewarding the effort, the process, before you go straight into result mode? Because we’re human after all. I’ m not a bloody machine! We learn through experience, emotions, interacting with other people and by making mistakes! So no thank you I don’t want the machine to do everything for me.

Call me old-fashioned, but before mobile phones, to go from A to B, we had to find our way on a map. To read a map, you had to learn spatial skills, remember names, and find your way to a new location. You had to be quite resourceful in finding a solution to get you where you wanted. It also required some effort.

I’m wondering if AI is not just another tool to serve capitalism? In capitalism everything we produce and create is measured against an efficency benchmark for profit nothing is left to chance.

In a world obsessed with “optimisation,” will we still have the freedom to do nothing? To be lazy, bored, or even create or think? Is the idea behind these AI tools to transform us into lamb with not a iota of critical thoughts? Is it?

When AI does everything for us, what’s left for creatives? The progress in photography and video have been huge. I can see the future. It features movies created with AI. Along with songs, photos, and social media content. All created by a machine with no human intervention. Will we sit there, wait and consume everythings that’s fed to us? What will this make of us? Fat blobs sitting on a sofa,waiting to be told what to do with life.

Creating is a purpose. Will millions of us deny ourselves the opportunity to create, because a machine is the epitome of perfection. When comtemplating the idea we’ll end being so efficient and productive, with no risk of getting tired or complaining. What a dream for the person who is paying the bills but what a bore for the human soul.

For sure it’s exciting for people who always dreamed of being creative but didn’t want to put the work into it. For someone who doesn’t want to learn, or lacks the skills to be an artist, it’s thrilling to create a work of art. How amazing!

But creating is much more than the final outcome. The joy is in the process, the gathering of inspiration. I must admit, I dabble with Midjourney at times. But I get bored rapidly, tired of the clichés and the lack of thought behind what I’m creating. There is no thought process, no ideas coming from a spark of inspiration while walking on the street. I became a passive person. Waiting for a machine to create something based on algorithms. And that’s the danger of these wonderful machines; they make us completely passive. Easier to manipulate?

What defines me as human is that I love the idea that we have the ability to create and learn. I still want to feel the joy and excitement behind every piece of art I create. When machines create art, they can’t add the human experience that makes art unique. The unique story we input into each piece of art is what makes it personal and emotional.

Machines can’t replicate the emotions and thoughts that we create. They can’t feel the excitement of trying something new. Or the disappointment when it doesn’t work out.

Each time I start a new project, I go through different phases. There’s the idea, the excitement. I start planning, organising, and researching. Creating a board of how I want my project to look. This is where I do most of the work on a project. I love this part as much as I love working on production and bringing that project to life. And yes, it would be much easier to ask an AI tool to create everything for me, wouldn’t it?

But that’s not the point of what being an artist is for me anyway. It would be easy to become lazy and have everything created at the touch of a button. I love the effort I put in, in everything I do. I love the intellectual challenge I put myself through. I love solving problems and finding a solution for what I have in mind.

I know this is hard to grasp. We live in a world that tries to make us passive. It will be harder to resist and reject the easy solution. Even more so for a generation that is growing up with Chat-GPT. For them, the challenge will be to defy “what’s the point in learning?” If I can ask chat-GPT?

It’s time for us humans to find a new purpose and keep what we’re excelling at: being creative. I more than happy for the machine to help me free up more time for my creativity. To produce more art by taking away the chore and the mundane. If women thought of AI, they would focus on that problem I guess. At the moment, AI gears towards productivity, capitalism, and money making machine. Everything that erases what makes us human and imperfect.

I want to allow myself to be imperfect, feel the pain of creating, hesitate, feel the fear and do it anyway. I’m happy to take the slow path. I want to create art with a message and I’m not looking for instant gratification. I want to keep creating, with flaws, my pains and joys. Being allowed to be 100% human.

How do you feel about AI taking over the creative world? Let me know your thoughts; I’m curious to know how you feel.