Chat GPT4 Unleashed: The Battle Between Innovation and Artistry (Illustrated)
The act of self-subsistence while surrounded by tools of automation can appear fundamentally irrational. Yet, for some, the drive to be the sole engineer of creative products exists despite the wealth of AI tools.
Nearing my first month here in Buenos Aires has made me question habits of unquestionable inefficiency in my life, namely, cooking. While I lug sacks of eggplant and fennel in the 94-degree, 100% humidity climate I have to question what sense there is with quality, affordable products all around me (*note, Argentina has now exceeded 100% inflation).
When there are more effective measures to take in solving the “problem” of a creative task, an efficiency-oriented value system will instruct you to outsource.
If you feel struck with the persistence to self-subsist in certain manual tasks of drawing, designing, and cooking I encourage you to read the following and comment.
What you should consider when you find yourself stuck in a conflict between what’s efficient and what is enriching:
Fear of AI vs. spiritual resistance: the all or nothing approach
The divisive rhetoric surrounding AI can create a belief system of an all-or-nothing approach that squashes creative approaches to using tools. Many creatives see offloading tasks to tools such as Chat GPT and Midjourney as an act of selling their souls. The more that these tools increase in their power, the more resistance they are met with. However, it is important to note that progress in these tools will persist, regardless of the ideological preaching of human vs machine.
Many AI-generated products often exceed the technical skill and efficiency of the combined effort of several people.
AI processing platforms have already won art, poetry, and gaming competitions around the world.
Examples include:
1. Art
AI-generated portrait sold for $432,500 at Christie’s auction house in 2018.
The portrait of Edmond de Belamy created by Paris-based art collective Obvious using a machine learning algorithm.
2. Poetry
An AI system called GPT-2 competed against humans in a poetry competition organized by the Poetry Society in the UK in 2019 and was judged to be of comparable quality to some of the human-written ones.
3. Creative Writing
The short story written by AI system called “The Day I Died” was accepted for publication in The Stinging Fly in 2020.
4. Gaming:
AI system called AlphaGo, developed by Google’s Deep Mind beat one of the world’s best human players of the Chinese board game Go in 2016.
The “competition” of human verses machine stirs deep emotional and spiritual discomfort in some. Thus, a moral structure with religious fervor has been burgeoning over the last few years amongst adversaries of AI. It is senseless to compete with the speed of technology if perfecting the end product is your aim. Conversely, full reliance on AI tools will decrease your vigilence for quality and attenuate your creative abilities.
The key in succeeding as a creative person will be to understand the strengths and limiations of tools like ChatGPT, Midjourney, and other AI tools.
Finding the balance between efficiency and enrichment:
At the cusp of any technological renaissance, widespread fear stirred counter-movements that attempted to suppress the infiltration of new devices or ideas.
While still novel, this is a time that could be compared to historical precedents like the invention of the printing press or later, the tractor.
In both examples, a majority of the population had their lives fundamentally altered, which did indeed threaten their livelihoods. Conversely, society was able to more effectively produce and distribute resources for living and learning.
Two brief histories:
The printing press:
The 15th-century invention by Johannes Gutenberg revolutionized the way information was disseminated. Before the printing press, books and manuscripts were copied by hand, which was a slow and expensive process. The printing press made it possible to produce books in large quantities, quickly and inexpensively. This development paved the way for the widespread distribution of knowledge and ideas and helped to fuel the intellectual and cultural flourishing of the Renaissance.
The tractor:
The tractor, on the other hand, was invented in the late 19th and early 20th century and revolutionized agriculture. Before the tractor, farming was a labor-intensive and time-consuming process. Tractors made it possible to plow fields and plant crops much more efficiently and allowed farmers to work larger areas of land. This development helped to increase agricultural productivity and played a significant role in the growth of modern economies.
All the while, the innovations moved forward . . . and society had to adjust. By looking at history, we can offload some future discomfort by assessing our own place and vocational context in the fact of massive generation machines.
AI: Chatbots, art generation, gaming, and beyond . . .
AI is poised to revolutionize the way we work and live. The potential applications of AI range from improving healthcare and education to enhancing cybersecurity and environmental sustainability. One of the key similarities between the printing press, tractor, and AI is their ability to democratize access to resources and information. AI has the potential to make it easier for people to access services and resources that were previously inaccessible.
Tech as a tool rather than a crutch:
A world of full automation without the creative injection of a human mind will ultimately run deplete.
While machine generation can enhance creative output, it remains fundamentally different from human creativity. Machines can generate outputs based on predetermined rules and algorithms but lack the capacity for intuition, inspiration, and abstract nuance of human creativity.
Thus, relying solely on machine-generated content is likely to result in a monotonous, repetitive, and ultimately unsatisfying output.
A system devoid of the creative process will induce a compounding stress fracture on the ankle of humanity.
Unrealized instinct and unpracticed intuition will be atrophied muscles of a corpse that will ultimately limp in the direction towards a Brave New World.
To avoid a world devoid of agency and individualism, it will be critical to strengthen artistic intuition and creative processes while adopting technological tools.
Process and generation of ideas:
The act of creating is a kind of theater whereby the maker’s thoughts and instincts combine. For many artists, writers, and even creative programmers- a state of flow will be described where the individual has entered a glide on ice rather than a walk on concrete.
The creative process is the element that elevates creative works and facilitates future inspiration.
What a case study on a basted chicken can reveal about automation vs. creative process:
The United States Dollar is stretched by a taffy-puller in Argentina. This means an expat, like myself, can experience a delicious meal at the cost of a San Francisco latte.
I have been especially curious about my peculiar defect when I walk home to cook myself a meal from otherwise productive coworking sessions in the city. No matter what route I take, I inevitably pass empanadas baked to perfection, fluffy chipas with fresh cheese, and affordable opportunities to dine in.
While living in San Francisco, my compulsive cooking behavior could be justified by opposite forces at play: high labor costs compounded by the high cost of living and every taxation tactic in the book.
However, in the context of cheap labor costs and a failing currency, what sense is there in self-subsisting?
Unseasonably warm conditions in Buenos Aires have meant trudging through 95* (getting hotter now) degree weather in 100% humidity to safely deliver my groceries to my flat — like a true masochist. The prep digs into time that could be spent working or socializing, and my time could doubtlessly be “optimized” by outsourcing this task completely.
Similar to drawing, writing, coding, etc, the motions that go into washing, chopping, sorting, and titrating heat and salt are repetitive and mechanical.
My pan flip is less than perfect — surely reproducible by a machine.
Nevertheless, there is an element of creativity as I cook, as it varies day to day, following the inspiration of the smells, experiences, and environments I find myself in.
Each step in the process, left to muscle memory, frees my mind to new ideas outside of work, life, and play.
There’s a sort of synesthetic association in the act of creating, where the products of our direct interaction with the world generate a connection with the figurative world.
The process of writing this article, for instance, involved tending to a basted chicken and roasted veggies while scribbling notes.
Like other creative professionals, I find that many of my new creative ideas are born from the process of participating in another creative act (sometimes related, sometimes not).
This is not to suggest the method of writing while cooking — as it results in a smudged keyboard — but to call attention to the little creative weavings that occur in the mechanical, less “efficient” movements involved in the creative process.
To summarize:
Participating in making something, rather than being a passive administator (or prompt creator), can rapidly jumpstart new ideas.
Whether the thing you’re making is in the real world or in a digital interface, creative flow of ideas often happens in the stretches of continually doing a task.
For that reason, cooking, writing, drawing, coding, etc. can lead to snowballing ideas that both jumpstart new projects and take you to your end goal.
Where we lose process, we lose practice.
An efficiency-oriented perspective would highlight the inefficiencies of this process.
Likewise, efficiency-oriented value structures would beg of you to take a vehicle over taking a walk.
For those who feel more guided by science than intuition, there is a growing body of scientific evidence correlating physical movement with creativity and increased brain activity. Neuroimaging has shown physical engagement to increase the size of the hippocampus, which is a key brain area involved in learning and memory as well as creativity.
New-agey science suggests taking measures like walking and “smiling” for “optimization.”
Relying on prescriptions for activities that would otherwise be innate, ultimately makes us less effective in the end.
I am actually in favor of this type of research, I find it a useful tool to understand the body. I am even in favor of devices that record activity and body functioning to help users improve their health (i.e. the Apple watch). All the while, I believe it’s best to not become overly reliant on tech to determine our day-to-day living; just as it would be better to not rely on it for day-to-day creating.
When we rely too heavily on tech, rather than our sensory understanding of the world, we ironically become less efficient.
Following prescriptive advice on how to live or simply siphoning outputs from a will leave your creative problem-solving skills weak.
Over time, this will mean spending more time on outsourcing for answers rather than having well-oiled intuition.
Our natural systems have evolved over millennia- we have developed an appendage mind within a matter of decades. Sure, there’s been a natural evolutionary process of the computer that has amounted through our 200,000+ years of being a species, but there is no questioning its infancy as an innovation.
We do not have full comprehension of our computational creation, or what it means for the future. The innovative creative would be wise to recognize human creativity as an essential part of the innovation process. Therefore, the spark that leads to a breakthrough can be smoothed, not smothered by AI tools.
If you find yourself questioning your creative compulsions or persistence in doing things “the old-fashioned way,” or defending your craft to Singularity proponents, know that you can have your cake and eat it too.
Navigating AI tools does not mean uploading your soul. When learned for their capabilities and constraints, AI tools can be as big or small an asset in idea creation as you want, but in the end, your journey to the creative destination will supersede technical “perfection.”
Lastly,
Please leave meme suggestions and your own personal narratives of finding middle ground between tech and technique in the comments.
