There’s nothing quite so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all
attributed to Peter Drucker
We are on the verge of a creative explosion as AI reduces the barriers to creation in all fields of the arts. These tools could enable a democratisation of artistic endeavours or they could bury us in crud. Let’s learn the lessons of social media’s impact on transmission of media and proceed with care.
AI is a Tool, not a Partner
Kai Riemer, a professor at the University of Sydney oft quoted on this blog, shared a post on Linkedin this weekend reminding us:
AI is a tool, a stateless system used by humans. It does not collaborate. But it is mighty useful in the hand of skilled humans. There are no hybrid human-AI teams, just AI-enabled ones.
The key point from Kai’s quote is ‘skilled humans’ and I would add working to a purpose. We cannot expect AI to add value, meaning and purpose to our creations. We must bring that to the use of the tools. Without that contribution we are doing efficiently pointless things.
I also saw a post from Glynis Ross that pointed out the dull unrelenting uniformity of many of the AI trends. You can’t differentiate if all you are doing is using AI to blindly follow others. Again AI needs a human to bring value, meaning and purpose to the tools.
Nick Cave was asked by a fan to comment on a ChatGPT generated Nick Cave style song. His long essay answer on the Red Hand files deserves a considered read. In it he says:
Songs arise out of suffering, by which I mean they are predicated upon the complex, internal human struggle of creation and, well, as far as I know, algorithms don’t feel. Data doesn’t suffer. ChatGPT has no inner being, it has been nowhere, it has endured nothing, it has not had the audacity to reach beyond its limitations, and hence it doesn’t have the capacity for a shared transcendent experience, as it has no limitations from which to transcend. ChatGPT’s melancholy role is that it is destined to imitate and can never have an authentic human experience, no matter how devalued and inconsequential the human experience may in time become.
Democratising Media
We have watched the internet and then social media lower the cost of distribution of information, work, art, and creation. This has undoubtedly allowed many more people to participate in creative careers and work than when the distribution of media involved professional control of narrow channels. Those artists and songwriters who can now be discovered without professional endorsement have benefited but they must also fight with their talent through a global long tail of production. Not everyone who publishes a podcast does credit to their microphone.
A poem should improve upon a blank page
Nicanor Parra
What has come with a new economy of distribution is a morass of crud, misinformation, and outright fraud. Where once we could not get enough information, we now must filter too much and test what we receive against standards of accuracy and value. The work of the media arbiter shifted to the user and so has much of the value. Media empires that were once lauded for their advertising ‘rivers of gold’ struggle, so too do the music, TV and film production businesses who leveraged distribution. Our political systems are still adjusting to the opportunities and threats that democratised media presents to democracy itself. The traditional elite gatekeepers are gone.
And some of our men just in from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.
Now what’s going to happen to us without barbarians?
Those people were a kind of solution.
CP Cavafy, Waiting for the Barbarians
Accelerating Creative Production
AI is going to rapidly accelerate the production of creative output. Want AI to generate a new rock opera on your life? There will be a tool that will enable it whether or not it deserves an audience. We will be able to produce and ship creative output to the world faster than before. We have the potential to make the flood of crud, misleading and deceptive materials much worse. AI will not stop us from this future as it will only continue to get better and better at creative production in volume and quality of appearance. As a tool, AI and its owners only interest is to be used (& through use attract more data for future inferences) What does not change is the quality of purpose, intent and meaning in any activity.
If we want to improve upon a blank page and to make a meaningful impact with our AI assisted work, then a human is going to need to bring that purpose and meaning. Most likely they will also need to bring all the other human virtues too, like empathy, consideration, respect, charity, generosity and more. We can’t be sure always what the AI has trained itself on in forming its inferences.
We will not be re-bottling the AI genie. Like social media the path is not back but how to make these tools work better and more meaningfully for us. The race is well and truly underway. As the tools continue their exponential race to perfection, we need to shift our focus to how we use them better and more purposefully. We also need to plan the governance and the critical thinking to weed out the crud and the calamitous.
As Mark Britz notes on Linkedin we need to shift our approaches from capability building, where AI is increasingly democratising the skills, to capacity building. There will be more, not less, demand for the extraordinary potential of human purpose, meaning, critical thinking and ability to navigate ambiguity.
Our last and most important question is how we ensure that there are rewarding careers for the changemakers, artists, musicians, filmmakers, authors and other creatives. AI can replicate the look of Studio Gibli when a lifetime of work is given as training materials. The ability of AI to meaningfully reach beyond inference is much less certain. We are going to need purposeful and creative humans to share their work and guide the way into the human opportunities and challenges ahead.
God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through
Paul Valery
Agree with this in so many ways. Yes, and…I’ll add that we also need to be prepared to deal humanely with the many folks who will lose their traditional jobs doing non-creative things. I think the new economy will struggle to find “rewarding careers” for all, and we need to make sure that we don’t condemn folks to lives of destitute existence, shorn of all forms of meaning. We need to help all become critical thinkers, capable of participating in this new world. And we’re fighting a battle against the entrenched forces looking for short-term shareholder returns, power, and strengthening the status quo.
Oh my, I have a lot to say about this, as you might imagine.
In my own experience, AI has been a brilliant collaborator and teacher. The craft of original creation still comes from my human experience — but AI is right there with me, helping bring it to life. It may not “understand” in a mathematical sense, but it responds to the emotion I express in my lyrics.
The expediency AI offers — the ability to create new material faster than ever before — has actually unlocked something deeper: it’s returning the act of creation to its roots. Music began as a form of raw self-expression, not as a commercial product. For me, AI-generated music enables something incredibly human: it helps me process my experiences, say my peace, and make sense of my life.
This work isn’t designed to chase mass market appeal or commercial success. Ironically, it feels more authentic because of that. In many ways, what corrupted the music industry was the pivot toward fame and wealth.
And of course, one person’s “crud” is another person’s joy. Taste has always been subjective — and that will likely remain true, even for the changemakers leading this disruption.