If you don’t want to be replaced by a robot stop creating like one.
As Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to advance, many professionals in the creative industries are both excited and concerned with the speed and prolificacy of their artificial counterparts. According to a report by Ericsson, “all jobs where efficiency and productivity gains can be made will be impacted, including creative work.” Now, I’m a big fan of AI and can see huge potential in how they are being introduced into the creative process. Looking at all the articles being written on LinkedIn, it appears I’m not the only one. However, I think it’s important that we use this incredible new tool to improve the quality of our work, rather than expedite it.
In this article, I’d like to posit a way that creatives (and humans in general) can continue to add value and compete with the incredible power of this nascent AI.
While AI can generate art, music, and even entire websites, one limitation that currently exists is that AI can only create concepts that humans have the precognition to request. In other words, AI can only work within the bounds of human creative direction, which comes pre-packaged with all of the biases, clichés, and trends associated with the industry. The problem this creates for humans is that AI is a natural (and incredibly powerful) mimic. So, realistically, why would a client use an (expensive) human to recreate, rehash, or remix the known, when an AI can produce countless versions of this kind of trite creativity for next to free? Part of the answer to this is in educating the people we work with to understand that the value we add is in rationalisation rather than the generation of visual outcomes. However, realistically, that’s a hard sell and I can see some clients thinking “apples to apples.”
For this reason, I think we need to be very clear about what it is that we do as creatives and make it very distinct from the visual outcome. For me, the best work I’ve ever been involved in hasn’t had a clear plan, it’s shifted, or been reimagined through mistakes or adversity, it’s often about seeing something better than the thing you were trying to make whilst in the pursuit of trying to make the thing you thought you wanted. Without the messy process, we’re limited to the bounds of our own boring brains without ever finding something that’s going to blow it.
We need to find a way to reinclude magic in our creative practice. We can no longer rely on existing critiquing processes, as they are by their nature, limited to what we’ve seen before. On that playing field, we don’t stand a chance against AI. This presents an opportunity for us humans to differentiate ourselves by embracing our unique ability to rationalize chaos. By including an element of free association in the creative process, humans can exceed the boundaries of what AI is capable of and compete with ever more prolific machines.
But, we’re going to need to get much better at creating the new. At the very least, we should call time on the moodboard. Killing off the endless circle-jerk of ‘Pin-spiration’ can’t do us creatives any harm. Don’t get me wrong, I think inspiration is vital but when you’ve seen the same references come up on these boards for years it gets a bit worrying, If all our inspiration comes from the same small set of sources, the gene pool from which we birth our ‘ideas’ becomes a bit familiar, in this case we shouldn’t be surprised if, after a few generations, the work begins to feel a bit inbred.
However, it’s not just about the creative process itself. It’s also important for humans to be open to the idea of chance and luck in how they judge their own work. We shouldn’t limit our critique to what we’ve seen and what has worked in the past, we need to separate the quality of the process from the quality of the outcome, because, sometimes great work comes from an abstract and non-traditional process. As the famous architect Frank Gehry puts it, “I don’t have any preconceived notions of what it’s going to be. I just let it happen.” So, Instead of following a strict set of criteria, creatives (and clients) should be willing to take risks and embrace the unexpected outcomes that may arise.
Remember, humans still have a unique advantage: the ability to add meaning to the meaningless. By embracing the unknown we can stay ahead of the game and create work that truly stands out in a world of AI.