The hard part of creativity is often making the thing we're envisioning. While AI can help, it's ultimately just a tool and, like all tools, it must be used properly. We still have to thoughtfully shape our ideas and discern when, where, and how to use the tools available to us.
THIS is great stuff, Stephen. I really appreciate your perspective. I just released a book called *Human Is the New Vinyl: Why Human Creativity Still Wins In the AI Revolution* and we have come to some similar conclusions. Although I think you have said them so well here and brought out some points I hadn’t even thought about—Thank you again, and feel free to check out my book or VerifiedHuman Ss. Peace- *mv
I’ve grown so weary over it all. It’s just so much slop. Thankfully, I’m a sports fan and sports hasn’t been affected as much. But the magic of the internet, of connecting, of stumbling upon something surprising with sheer curiosity, is dying.
I’m not sure. I’m starting to think we’re going towards ‘single interface’ Internet, where each user has their own personalised interface (like ChatGPT), and just engages entirely with the Internet through that. No community. No cool pages. No fun. I hope not though!
Just out of curiosity, where do you think we head from here? Part of me thinks it’ll just get worse and worse but part of me also thinks the levy has to break at some point. Perhaps the AI bubble bursting will be our wake up call.
We are as more likely to lose our creativity juice in this current wave of AI. Yes we might write the flawless outputs but those output lack the soul of ourselves. It makes us appear creative but not. Your imperfect grammatical mistakes are your edge in this AI era.
This is making me think of the particularly American emphasis on self-esteem, that everyone has to have a whole lot of it. It seems to be so important that everyone feels very good about themselves, whether or not they have all that much to feel good about. And up to a point that's fine, but it seems to lead to a whole thing where people feel entitled to a kind of fake self-esteem where they pretend to themselves and others that they are awesome. The extreme case would be the current president of the United States.
And using AI to "create" something for you and then tell yourself that you created it strikes me as another sort of extreme fake self-esteem. You didn't really create anything but you can pretend to yourself that you did, that you're a real author or artist or whatever, and then you can feel good about yourself in this totally unearned way, but it's OK because everyone has this weird sort of right to feel as though they're great people who have done great things. I think there's something unhealthy about it.
Love how you cut through the noise and bring it back to intention.
I keep wondering: if we’ve normalized “creating because we can,” how do we start building a culture that values why we create again? What shifts that mindset? Excited to hear your thoughts!
This A.I . thing is akin to "spreading the wealth." Both result in widespread mediocrity. On the other hand, truly creative individuals can and will make creative use of most any object or tool they choose to use. The unfortunate fact is that most people do not make many distinctions regarding all this and usually are comfortable with whatever is 'out there' commercially. 'Plus ca change, plus la meme chose.' By the way, these systems are not yet 'intelligent.' Some day they may be, but right now that term is misleading.
Yes. Right now it’s industrial-scale pattern matching. And the problem with pattern matching is that the output matches a lot of the patterns out there! Result = mediocre output.
In some ways we are on the same track, but I have serious problems with should and shouldn’t. Gatekeepers are also problematic.
There are millions of awful books on the market, even before AI. It's not a problem for gatekeepers. Readers judge book quality and listeners judge music. They are the only gatekeepers we need.
I’ve read awful books that were highly recommended and beloved music that hurts my ears. Who controls that gate? Certainly not me.
I’ve written over a dozen books, and only the first one back in 1980 received traditional publishing. I self-published all the rest, or they would not have seen the light. Are they any good, some seem to think so, but there may be some who think one or more suck. They have a right to their opinion, even to express it. Fortunately, they don’t have the right to close the gate.
AI may well expose us to tons of sludge, but we’ll just have to deal with it as we always have.
Yes a lot of gatekeepers are net-negative (book industry great example), but skills/learning is one of the few gatekeepers I’d embrace, and encourage people to view not as a hurdle but as a welcome part of the process
The hard part of creativity is often making the thing we're envisioning. While AI can help, it's ultimately just a tool and, like all tools, it must be used properly. We still have to thoughtfully shape our ideas and discern when, where, and how to use the tools available to us.
Yes. To me that is what separates “good” and “bad” AI use — it’s all about the intention behind it
THIS is great stuff, Stephen. I really appreciate your perspective. I just released a book called *Human Is the New Vinyl: Why Human Creativity Still Wins In the AI Revolution* and we have come to some similar conclusions. Although I think you have said them so well here and brought out some points I hadn’t even thought about—Thank you again, and feel free to check out my book or VerifiedHuman Ss. Peace- *mv
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I’ve grown so weary over it all. It’s just so much slop. Thankfully, I’m a sports fan and sports hasn’t been affected as much. But the magic of the internet, of connecting, of stumbling upon something surprising with sheer curiosity, is dying.
I’m not sure. I’m starting to think we’re going towards ‘single interface’ Internet, where each user has their own personalised interface (like ChatGPT), and just engages entirely with the Internet through that. No community. No cool pages. No fun. I hope not though!
The magic has been dead a long time
Just out of curiosity, where do you think we head from here? Part of me thinks it’ll just get worse and worse but part of me also thinks the levy has to break at some point. Perhaps the AI bubble bursting will be our wake up call.
We are as more likely to lose our creativity juice in this current wave of AI. Yes we might write the flawless outputs but those output lack the soul of ourselves. It makes us appear creative but not. Your imperfect grammatical mistakes are your edge in this AI era.
democratizing creativity = dehumanizing humanities
another point: all the pointless, "just-because-I-can" activities are actively destroying not only our minds but also our habitable environment.
This is making me think of the particularly American emphasis on self-esteem, that everyone has to have a whole lot of it. It seems to be so important that everyone feels very good about themselves, whether or not they have all that much to feel good about. And up to a point that's fine, but it seems to lead to a whole thing where people feel entitled to a kind of fake self-esteem where they pretend to themselves and others that they are awesome. The extreme case would be the current president of the United States.
And using AI to "create" something for you and then tell yourself that you created it strikes me as another sort of extreme fake self-esteem. You didn't really create anything but you can pretend to yourself that you did, that you're a real author or artist or whatever, and then you can feel good about yourself in this totally unearned way, but it's OK because everyone has this weird sort of right to feel as though they're great people who have done great things. I think there's something unhealthy about it.
Love how you cut through the noise and bring it back to intention.
I keep wondering: if we’ve normalized “creating because we can,” how do we start building a culture that values why we create again? What shifts that mindset? Excited to hear your thoughts!
This A.I . thing is akin to "spreading the wealth." Both result in widespread mediocrity. On the other hand, truly creative individuals can and will make creative use of most any object or tool they choose to use. The unfortunate fact is that most people do not make many distinctions regarding all this and usually are comfortable with whatever is 'out there' commercially. 'Plus ca change, plus la meme chose.' By the way, these systems are not yet 'intelligent.' Some day they may be, but right now that term is misleading.
Yes. Right now it’s industrial-scale pattern matching. And the problem with pattern matching is that the output matches a lot of the patterns out there! Result = mediocre output.
Stephen,
In some ways we are on the same track, but I have serious problems with should and shouldn’t. Gatekeepers are also problematic.
There are millions of awful books on the market, even before AI. It's not a problem for gatekeepers. Readers judge book quality and listeners judge music. They are the only gatekeepers we need.
I’ve read awful books that were highly recommended and beloved music that hurts my ears. Who controls that gate? Certainly not me.
I’ve written over a dozen books, and only the first one back in 1980 received traditional publishing. I self-published all the rest, or they would not have seen the light. Are they any good, some seem to think so, but there may be some who think one or more suck. They have a right to their opinion, even to express it. Fortunately, they don’t have the right to close the gate.
AI may well expose us to tons of sludge, but we’ll just have to deal with it as we always have.
Bill
Yes a lot of gatekeepers are net-negative (book industry great example), but skills/learning is one of the few gatekeepers I’d embrace, and encourage people to view not as a hurdle but as a welcome part of the process