The future of creativity is Human-AI hybrid.
Artificial Intelligence is the next big thing in creative thinking. (Yup! I said it…)
A.I. has been a part of our world for a long time now, but it's only recently that we've seen its true potential as a creative tool and partner for human creatives to bring forth the unimaginable from inside the machine. Artificial intelligence will be an invaluable asset to creativity in many different ways, including: coming up with ideas on their own; collaborating with humans creatively; and helping humans be more productive by doing some jobs faster or smarter than they could do themselves. Here let’s try and explore how AI will help shape our future as creatives, and what we can expect from this new era of collaboration between man and machine.
The potential of A.I. in the creative process
The notion of AI and creativity is an intriguing one. As we watch the world of technology evolve, we see the potential of A.I. in the creative process more than ever before. Added to that, our perpetual yearning for new and innovative ideas challenges human creativity to embrace new technologies and processes, such as those related to A.I., to create new ways of thinking which lead to innovation and progress.
Let's think about how A.I. might be able to help us with the creative process:
Contribute ideas: If we give A.I.'s a certain topic or subject, they might be able to come up with ideas on their own, based on the data we provide them. This is an important idea, the machine learns from existing data, therefore will always be bound by precedence. Breakthroughs which we humans are very good at needs deviating from the norm. Something a machine will hesitate to do, given it’s trying to impress and therefore will always head for existing popular opinion.
Collaborate: A.I. can remind us of what we've forgotten or might miss out on if it were only us humans working on an idea by ourselves. GPT3 for example is effectively a super knowledge bank, it has been taught on 10% of the internet. Which means, it is above our narrow knowledge base or personal biases. When collaborating with AI, we can be assured of being presented with broader perspectives and insights beyond our own. Super augmentation of the human mind if you ask me!
https://www.getinspo.coBe more productive: A.I.'s are able to perform repetitive tasks more efficiently by relieving us humans from having to do them, so that we can focus on our strengths, which are more suited for creative thinking. We all know the number of hours we spend on research, scrolling through pages of Wikipedia and the internet at large, or making “decks” to present our ideas beautifully. AI can and has already started automating those tasks for us.
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Better understand human creativity: By using A.I. in the creative process, we might be able to learn more about why humans are more likely to create successful ideas than machines (or vice versa), and what sets them apart from each other, which could lead us to new ways of thinking that would benefit the creative process and the progress of our society as a whole.
These four points all relate to different aspects of the creative process, from ideation, collaboration, or our pursuit to better understanding human creativity. In fact, if we look at the idea closely enough, we'll see that these four points outline a bigger picture within which we can see that A.I. and creativity are more closely entwined than most people might think, with the potential to bring us new ways of thinking which could very well lead to progress and innovations that would have been unthinkable before.
Creativity & Innovation is after all the ability to connect two unrelated things to create something novel, useful and beautiful.
Why the love-hate relation?
AI can help as creatives in many ways, such as by contributing ideas or by collaborating with humans. AI can also help humans be more productive - it can do some tasks faster and smarter than we could do them ourselves. What's most exciting about A.I. is that its abilities and potential to change and be used differently and creatively is still unclear and evolving. The future looks bright for the art of creativity and innovation.
In the end, nothing beats human creativity and innovation. AI can help us achieve our goals faster or mimic parts of our creative process more efficiently, but ultimately, we are the ones who will be responsible for creating new ideas and making them happen. A.I., on the other hand, will continue to evolve and find its own creative potential - based on the data, information and knowledge we give it access to. In this way, humans will always be one step ahead of A.I., as creators and innovators.
AI in creativity is simply an exciting future.
In order for us as creatives to stay relevant in a constantly evolving world that is becoming more automated, we'll have to embrace A.I. in the creative process and use it to our advantage, which many artists, painters, musicians and architects are already doing.
What does tomorrow look like? (A glimpse)
AI is a growing field with a lot of potential for good in the future. Now, AI can be integrated into an individual's creativity and their creative process to give a feedback loop that makes the creation more natural and quicker. It is not going to replace or eliminate creativity, but it can certainly enhance it.
AI can help us recognise patterns in our creative works. Helping us recognize when something is good or bad, but also what specifically makes it so. This would be extremely helpful for understanding the building blocks of creativity and different components of art, music, literature, etc. For example, machine learning can help us to recognize what makes a successful painting from thousands of paintings, or what makes a good poem out of hundreds.
AI is already being integrated into the creative process in small steps, it has already become prevalent in the music industry. There are now software that analyzes your voice over and takes down notes about what your vocal range is, how you pronounce words, and more. That data can then be used to either mask out problem areas or to guide the human being into staying within their comfort zone. Then there are companies that take AI software and put it into music-writing programs. This way, "humans" are still writing the songs but using AI to help them to generate lyrics.
The above example shows how AI can replicate a master’s work, definitely not “everyday” yet, but possibilities are quite fascinating, no?
Closing…
Artificial intelligence is changing the way we think about creativity. And it’s not replacing human creatives, but augmenting them in ways that are more than just the sum of its parts. With AI, people will be able to explore ideas they might have never thought possible before or execute on their creative process with greater ease and less friction. We may see a future where computer generated art meets artistic expression from artists around the world—and this kind of collaboration is something I can't wait to see come alive!
Here’s another video with super cool use of AI in art. Enjoy.
**This article was co-written with an AI