Let’s talk AI and Creativity
People are getting lazy to think.
Let’s admit, we all want more free time — if there is a better way to achieve the same or similar result, we tend to take the fastest route. Who doesn’t want to work more efficiently (less time and achieve more) ? Isn’t AI gonna to solve our problems so that we can be less busy, more lazy ?
On the other hand, we do have our worries on how AI is going to replace jobs, threats against humanity, and how it is hurting creativity and our ability to imagine.
Nowadays, we just need to ask AI engines such as ChatGPT to provide us any answer, Perplexity to provide business insight, or Midjourney to create artistic images by simply providing them a prompt (“a prompt” is any form of text, question, information, or coding that communicates to AI what response you’re looking for. The more specific the prompt is, the more likeihoold to tune the result to what you want it to be).
AI is NOT just a tool, Oops..
A tool is something that helps us to do the job more efficiently. Isn’t AI also a tool?
A bicycle is a tool human build for transport, as in an interview with Steve Jobs when talked about computer is also a tool, and “is like a bicycle (being the tool) of the mind”. He elaborated, “Human on the bicycle blew away the condor, all the way off the top of the list. And it made a really big impression on me, that we humans are tool builders, and that weakened fashioned tools that amplify these inherent abilities that we have to spectacular magnitudes. And so for me a computer has always been a bicycle of the mind, something that that takes us far beyond our inherent abilities.”
In the past, a tool is to extend or to expand our capability, a screwdriver helps to fix a screw will lesser effort, a car helps us move faster from A to B, a computer as Steve Jobs visualised is an extension of our mind.
Can we think of AI as a tool then ? What is it extending if so ?
AI, if we look at it should be like a new born baby, our precious offsprings, they are not an extension of our body nor mind, but an extension of our legacy or beliefs, which is, another dimension when they have and soon will have, their own thoughts by themselves, without the need of a prompt from human. The differences are only with tens of thousands time faster, inherent with vastly more information after they are trained or learnt (by themselves). The only lacking is a physical body as flexibly and versatile as human, for now.
They even learn like human, from mistakes they have made, allow them to generalise their knowledge in order to improve and avoid the same mistake in the next iteration.
Yes it sounds horrifying, isn’t it ?
People often argue on both sides AI can’t create or AI’s creation is just another form of creativity.
Today, it is not as worrying as the creation often mimic some form of human’s creation or with a little guidance to tell AI which part we want them to help with the creation, or give them a prompt so that they can create what we want.
Such creation is actually bounded.
Bounded by our imagination and choice of words.
When AI can really creates…
When AI is able to develop its own mind “freely”, the Artificial General Intelligence AGI so to speak, even not inline with what we have been experiencing, this is undoubtedly be a new form of creation.
Swiss watch makers were disrupted by Japanese watch movements when Seiko invented Quartz movement. Which is true that many brands disappeared. We do not see automatic movement goes out of fashion as companies keep innovate and creates beautiful watch movements and consumers has been moving from utility and functionality to appreciation and fashion oriented.
The invention of car didn’t obsolete horse carriage drivers but the horse iteself. I think the horses should be the one complaining during the automobile evolution not the drivers. Horses became more entertainment (gambling, leisure, etc) use than transport purposes. The drivers needed to adopt and started to learn driving motor vehicle at that era.
When AI really becomes independent, are they able to create a company which can replace Rolex brand in watch industry and put them out of business? Will Toyota, BMW etc in car industry get replaced because of AI can design and manufacture cars ? Can AI creates a beverage formula that will be more popular than The Coca Cola company creates ? I think the disappearing of these brands, if any, will not be caused by AI’s creativity but by their own management and competition more likely.
Why do we accept other artists to paint and new musicians to create musics but not AI?
The answer lies more in the copyright issues if the AI is trying to mimic others’ works more than if AI can really creates art.
Where did AI gets its insprition and how the creation came to life will be the point of debate.
The source of training dataset are not totally transparent and the original creators and contents are not properly credited in most cases nowadays, how AI simulate, and be stimulated in order to generate such contents and artpieces are still a black box. With Deep Learning it really lilterally hiding the training data it acquired, feature extracted, pattern recognized together with the hidden answers (and mistakes) deep deep in the AI model’s layers across the whole AI’s “mind”.
I bet till now, no one can really pinpoint how each decision is being made when AI creates a certain plot or dialogue in the story, a choice of a pattern or stroke in an art piece, or a prediction on consumer buying behaviour with massive input data from Amazon, Walmart etc. As such result came from a correlation of massive multidimensional input data.
How shall we treat AI creation
We can treat AI when in any creation space like another stream of pop culture, another form of art, another form of creation. Some will use it and get monitized with it, some of us will be worried that the AI hype will get us replaced when AI is gaining traction and popularity. This happens for all form of innovation in the past I must say. However,
The protection of originailtiy of the creation will be the next battle the society will be fighting just like counterfieting at the next level.
My final thoughts…
I don’t think we should over concern on AI in creation, I am not betting for or against AI in the area of creativity, certainly it will help in a lot of areas from art to entertainment to business, and a lot will get disrupted at the same time.
What we really need in the soceity as I mentioned above is to develop a system and strucutre for orinigal creator to get the reward they deserved and protect their copyright of the original creation.
We are over focusing on AI, look at the stock market, pick top 10 high runers stocks in the past 12 months, and how many of them have AI element ? When the market is focusing and worring on AI, let’s relook into digital right managmenet (DRM), revise the old copyright, patent, counterfieting and infridgement regulation.
Let’s keep creating, AI wont strive without orignal content, the voice of original singer, the inspiration from Van Gogh. Let’s continue be the master of creativity.
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