The Subtle Software Use of AI: How It Endangers Creativity and Empowers Efficiency

John Tuttle
Of Intellect and Interest
4 min readMay 20, 2018
Artistic AI. Source: Telekom Electronic Beats.

AI-run software tools are becoming more and more popular. Along with this increasing interest and demand, a greater number of these AI tools are being developed and put to use. For example, a variety of photo editing softwares employ artificial intelligence in their “smart tools” to perform very specific functions. Just over a year ago, there was somewhat of a to-do over another photo-altering AI technique.

Adobe Systems is a prominent computer software company responsible for a variety of software to perform video editing, photo editing, document editing, etc. Adobe also supplies stock footage and photography. They’re a leading market in the modern world of media and the arts. In 2017, the fact that Adobe was now offering the capability to alter selfies to give them an appearance of professional-grade photography. This high-grade smartphone photo editing and other factors led to the writing of many opinion articles in respectable publications questioning whether “fine art photography” is a true art form.

In several instances, AI has been detracting the artistic aspect of several of the arts. Photography is not alone. The art of translation, a masterful trade many current online lit journals try to share and promote, has been damaged because a rough translation can be spontaneously spat out by Google Translate or similar renditions of AI translators. Mind you, Google Translate and its peers can’t translate a text with creative liberty and flair, but they might not be too far off from it.

Additionally, AI has generated digital art, abstracts and bizarre nude-style images and the like, in recent years. This “artistic” development has brought on the argument posed by the Scientific American’s David Pogue in “Is Art Created by AI Really Art?” In his article, Pogue discusses how he’s seen new software “create” original paintings. The writer continues his probing of the issue by bringing to light the fact that “Software is doing well at composing music, too.”

Pogue points out that certain aspects of the music industry are starting to be run by AI software. He uses the company Amper Music as an example. Bearing some resemblance to Adobe’s royalty-free stock imagery of Pond 5’s royalty-free media, Amper offers a unique benefit.

The company produces unique AI-generated music for specific projects. Amper and Adobe have even teamed up and together have a promising future in the media. Pogue pronounces Amper as a company that’s “going after stock-music houses, companies that sell ready-to-download music.” He concludes his article buy leaving his readership with an amusing question to ponder, “When an AI-composed song wins the Grammy, who gets the trophy?”

This is a genuine concern some people, particularly those who consider themselves artists, have with the so-called creativity AI is capable of. Meanwhile, there are many more types of software which have been engineered for workflow efficiency across a number of industries.

Source: Ubergizmo.

AI is being used in web learning, or eLearning. Up to date eLearning courses are programmed with the latest and greatest software AI has to offer. AI-generated quizzes in such circumstances can actually alter themselves during the performance to better match the queries with the individual and his or her capabilities. The quizzes and tests place their participants in certain scenarios to see how they would perform. Measures such as these have been especially been put to good use in the evaluation of business employees.

Artificial Narrow Intelligence, the same form of primitive AI responsible for self-driving vehicles, is also capable of providing a great deal of assistance in the area of product development. This, in turn, can save time during the introduction of new products.

The implication of AI in today’s tech is a strong one as you can probably already tell from the previous paragraphs. Pluralsight, the site that touts itself as “the technology learning program,” has been keeping an eye on AI. The website has directed attention to the current AI tools from Microsoft.

Microsoft has updated its AI image search so users can customize rules around the recognition of certain objects. The company has also generated a service known as Video Indexer capable of audio translation and transcription. It can even go so far as to analyze emotion and sentiment present in video footage.

Chatbots are doing an amazing job at collecting and sorting analytical data. Now Skype can even host video chatbots. AI software has seeped into practically every sector of technology, and it doesn’t show signs of lessening anytime soon.

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John Tuttle
Of Intellect and Interest

Journalist and creative. Words @ The Hill, Submittable, The Millions, Tablet Magazine, GMP, University Bookman, Prehistoric Times: jptuttleb9@gmail.com.