One of the big draws of general-purpose AI is the pervasive means of creation. While AI helps human agents create both poetry and prose, the question remains: Does AI make us creative? Creation is common, while being creative isn’t. Never mind that while writing the above three sentences, I had to abort the Copilot prompt at least twice.
The new science points in the direction that access to AI indeed enables people to write better, draw more vividly, reach wider, and go deeper, but all this comes at the cost of diversity. All AI tools, true to the large language models that they are trained on, converge towards the mean. If one were to look at AI as yet another technology, akin to the pulley for the Egyptians, the question could be reframed as: ‘How do technologies impact human creativity?’ The short answer is – it depends. The longer version follows.
If you trace the history of creation, whether personal or institutional, the wellsprings are but two: boredom and problem. Our time and energy surpluses, coupled with our relative lack of inhibitions, led to some wonderful creations during our childhoods. The decorated walls (at least to our eyes), the clever contraptions out of scrap, improvised pretend-plays, twisted jingles, and exaptation of commonplace objects were acts of what Dean Keith Simonton calls ‘small-c creativity’. The countless daily hacks in the kitchen, while navigating official toxicity, rush-hour traffic, or salvaging social ties, also qualify as ‘small-c creativity’, except that they stem from problems worth solving.
Tools Serve Purpose
The potent combination of pent-up time and energy, channelised by a purpose and fuelled by appropriate skills, leads to creation. The rudimentary tools, such as the paint brush, the easel, the chisel, the hammer, and the lathe, were all in service of the artist possessed by a desire for self-expression or getting around a thorny problem. Bear in mind that creation did happen even in the absence of tools, as evident from the 40,000-year-old paintings at the Altamira Cave in Spain, hinting that humans were expressing eons before they figured out how to feed themselves. It’s safe to surmise that tools are always in the service of purpose, or to say that technology amplifies the intent. If you intend to create, you will figure out the appropriate tools, or go about it even in the absence of one, but no tool by itself can make you create, let alone be creative.
Let’s decipher how AI abuses creativity on both its ends. Firstly, it mercilessly absorbs all the surplus time. There’s always something for everybody at all times – never letting a moment of dullness settle in. With excess time mopped up and boredom camouflaged, there’s no room left to create. Create for what? Create for who? It’s a mass mobilisation of the creative class into the consuming class. There are far more people consuming than creating, their senses numbed by an incessant stream of content, fine-tuned to their desire, or what ought to be their desire. That’s the damage on the supply side.
Convenience Versus Capability
On the demand side, why will you struggle to write an essay when ChatGPT can furnish one for you, complete with phrases that even abuse your vocabulary? Right from writing code at offices to furnishing assignments in schools, the guardians aren’t shy of, or rather ashamed of, tapping into the neat miracle of AI. Their argument: ‘How does it hurt?’ Moreover, ‘If everyone’s at it and if I don’t, won’t I be losing out?’ Valid rebuttals. But what skill is one developing anyway? If your problems are solved for you for free, where’s the learning? Where’s the motivation to crack new springs of knowledge? Alas, your time is saved, and AI knows exactly what to do with it. So goes the vicious cycle. AI frees up your time, keeps you trapped in it, directs your attention and even blood pressure, and uses you to refine its algorithms. You are the bot in the hands of the bot.
How do we reclaim our creativity? Firstly, slow down. Yes, if you are being blessed with a long life, you can choose to slow down. This allows you to focus on the vital few, keep the rudder to yourself, and avoid the trap of one-upmanship. Secondly, cut down the usage of technology in your life, especially passive usage. Yes, use it to book the Uber, but don’t use it inside the Uber. Use it to research, but not to write. Use it to navigate, but do not forget to smell the roses along the way.
Thirdly, free up your time and get back to your hobbies. Invite boredom, think with your hands, solve problems once again, and get back to your small-c acts of creativity. And please don’t feel obliged to showcase it to the world. No one deserves it and even you don’t deserve to be validated. Get your intent in order, and technology will just amplify it.
As for writing this piece, I did use technology for figuring out synonyms and adopted the ‘read out loud’ feature, but I am fine living with my unoptimised sentences. That’s me, after all.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. |
