While sipping my morning tea and scrolling through LinkedIn, I stumbled upon a post about how AI can generate music using your digital avatar at the click of a button… or rather, the illusion of a button. That struck a chord with me.
Artificial Intelligence is being hailed as the great equalizer of creativity. From generating images at the click of a button to drafting entire novels in minutes, it is promoted as a technology that turns everyone into a creator. The narrative is seductive: if you can type a prompt, you can create. But behind this glossy promise lies an uncomfortable truth: AI doesn’t really enable creativity… it often disables it. Think about it.
True creativity stems from curiosity and interpretation… sometimes misinterpretation too! It involves observing the world, questioning norms and expressing something unique through the lens of personal experience. Like, when I conceive an idea for a product that improves life…through the lens of empathy… it takes quite an effort to convert that idea into a commercially viable product solution before it actually reaches the end consumer. The satisfaction is in the struggle and the memory it creates, which we cherish later.
AI shortcuts this process. It doesn’t create in the human sense: it recombines vast amounts of pre-existing data into outputs that look new. For the user, the process is reduced to prompt engineering rather than genuine ideation. You feel like you are creating, but in reality, you are curating a machine’s memory.
This distinction is critical. The act of creating is not simply about producing content. It is about discovery and reflection. These human experiences refine taste and judgment, which ultimately define a creator’s voice. When AI takes over the heavy lifting, it strips away the messy but vital process that shapes originality. The result? An illusion of creativity. You may walk away with a poem, a design or a marketing campaign… but it is not yours in the truest sense. You may look like a creator but you can never feel like a creator, using AI.
The business of AI is another layer to this debate. Much of the content generated by AI today exists not for art or self-expression, but to feed the advertising economy. With infinite AI-driven blogs, videos and images flooding digital platforms, the real beneficiaries are marketers and platforms. The machine-made content keeps people scrolling, clicking and buying. In this sense, AI is not at all about empowering individuals… it’s about generating endless hollow junk to optimize attention and sell ads. I am up for a debate… if you may allow me to.
For businesses, this raises a paradox. On one hand, AI tools offer cost-effective ways to churn out campaigns, product descriptions and visuals at scale. On the other, they risk drowning in a sea of sameness, where differentiation becomes harder. If everyone is using the same models trained on the same data, originality suffers. Consumers may quickly learn to tune out, just as they did with stock photography and formulaic advertising copy. So, what do you have to say on this? Where does that leave us?
The role of the human creator is more important than ever. AI can be a useful assistant, but it cannot replace the act of observing, thinking and interpreting. Businesses that lean too heavily on AI risk eroding their brand authenticity. Those that use AI selectively, while nurturing genuine human creativity, will stand out. The question is … where to draw the line?
The future of creativity is not about replacing people with machines, but about reminding ourselves what machines cannot replicate: perspective, empathy and the courage to say something truly new. Without that, we’re not creators—we’re just operators of algorithms, feeding a system designed to sell more advertisements.
While it may seem like the beginning of a new digital revolution, it might actually be heading towards its end. Creativity, at its core, thrives on active participation: the joy of building something from scratch, the surprise of discovery and most importantly… the pride of ownership. When people realize that AI-driven outputs demand little involvement, the novelty will quickly wear off. The thrill of creation will give way to boredom, as individuals find themselves reduced to passive consumers of machine-made content rather than active makers. A revolution that promises empowerment could collapse under the weight of its own automation.
Creativity lives in imagination, not in algorithms. Use AI as an aid, but never as a substitute for originality. Authenticity remains our final competitive edge, and it can be retained only by human intelligence. So, in simple terms: The ability to be truly original and genuine is what sets humans apart and only humans can keep that advantage. Let, AI live in that illusion that it has the power to create. What say? |
