For creative people, AI is the most powerful technology and tool ever developed. Many people feel threatened by it — and the impacts of AI are not without their downside — however, AI is here to stay, and it increases creativity by several orders of magnitude. It’s such a dramatic shift that even those who lack creativity are enabled to produce their own original music, write their own books, produce their own videos, and much more.
AI redefines creativity.
Today, many of us listen to Spotify for our music. In the future, every individual can listen to a stream of original music generated on demand just for them, using all available data to deliver the perfect music for the moment. The same can be said about the video feeds we watch today on social networks. Already using AI-driven algorithms, future content will be generated dynamically for each individual user.
Many creative professionals are horrified by AI. This may not be the best approach to AI for a creative person, because (1) it’s a fear largely based on myth and; (2) the real fear for creatives should be ignoring/maligning AI and becoming culturally obsolete in the process.
Plenty of creatives will survive the AI revolution, but they’ll be like vinyl records — appreciated for their humanness and warmth, enjoyed nostalgically. The creatives that drive culture over the coming decades will rely more and more on AI as not just a creative tool, but as an income-generating tool to bridge the art/business divide without sacrificing creative freedom. As AI improves and even a person lacking in creativity can generate their own art and music instantaneously with no skill or talent required, it will be indisputable: AI allows exponentially more diverse, deeply and frequently appreciated creative output than ever before in human history.
And you can be a part of it.
As a technologist, futurist and professional digital creative, I’ve followed AI closely over the previous decades. I was beyond thrilled to discover ChatGPT when it first launched, and have used it on a nearly daily basis ever since. I set out to become an expert in using AI creatively, a journey that has so far taken me to writing a 200+ page book in under 20 hours , designing over 100 art images for a tabletop card game in a few hours, publishing dozens of news articles in print and online, all with the assistance of AI.
One of the biggest myths of AI — especially among those who refuse to use it on principle — is that there’s no art or creativity in generating works of art, music or writing with AI. So-called “prompt engineering” (the act of designing a set of instructions for AI to generate something) has been lambasted as nothing more than glorified Googling, but to make that claim is to demonstrate ignorance of the true nature of using AI creatively. It does, in fact, require a deeper understanding of how large language models work, how to exploit AI’s strengths and weaknesses, and yes, how to creatively design instructions to get the output you seek. Creating works with AI is itself a very creative act.
It should be more widely understood (especially among creatives) that using AI does not undermine one’s creativity, but extends it. This page was written 100% by me without any assistance from AI. Another page on this website may be entirely written by AI. It’s my choice to use AI as a tool or not.
You can use AI creatively. Let me show you how. Email zac@zacshaw.com.