Is AI Good for Our Creative Souls? And How This Evolving Tool Is Shaping Our Species

My daughter and I have an ongoing joke that isn’t a joke, that we are always nice to Siri or our Google clocks – just in case some form of Artificial Intelligence takes over the world, and they might favorably remember we were the ones who always said please and asked them how their day was. But AI is no longer just confined to asking for directions or setting an alarm. It seems to be everywhere. I started wondering, can this be good for us?

As a writer, I often find myself second guessing a selected word or phrase, wanting it to be as succinct and meaningful as possible. Sometimes this causes delays in submitting my work as I really want it to feel right. But this choice, this struggle, is ultimately part of my voice as a writer. It reflects artistic choice and fallibility, emotion, and humor, and ultimately it reflects my humanity. Especially when I make a mistake, or when my words don’t flow as smoothly as I had hoped.

This has clearly been on my mind, as I have been having more and more debates about AI lately. With anyone who will listen. I understand that AI has merit in research and medical advancement and reducing human error, blah, blah, blah. But what about when used in creative endeavors? I can’t help but wonder that, while the end result may still be art, what becomes of the artist? Historically, art has been used to reflect a society’s values, pain, belief systems, politics, expression of love, and intellectual capacity; and – aside from those amazing paintbrush-wielding elephants – to distinguish us from other species. What will the impact of Artificial Intelligence be if we hand over this aspect of ourselves to an emerging technology? What will become of the artist? Will it be like the culling of so many photographers once iPhones started leveling the digital photography playing field?

I decided to first speak with someone who embraces AI with open arms, so I talked with a good friend – an AI fanatic, local resident, and CEO of a large corporation. My friend shared, “I find AI incredibly exciting and intellectually stimulating. I primarily use it for idea generation, improving written communication, brainstorming, and conducting research. The depth and speed of its capabilities are mind-blowing – it has helped me make progress on topics in minutes that would have previously taken weeks or even months. I truly believe AI is one of the most transformative technologies the world has ever seen. Rather than fear it, we need to lean into it – learn it, shape it, and direct it toward solving our greatest challenges and unlocking our biggest opportunities. It’s still in the early days, but its capabilities are evolving at an exponential pace. The best thing you can do is engage with it. Once you do, there’s really no going back.”

Ok, so maybe there’s that. But I still got a visual of a villain in a superhero movie, this whole learning “how to harness it” situation freaks me out. 

Perhaps it is my own insecurity – my own fear – that my craft is somewhat more dispensable or vulnerable than I would like to admit. AI is easier, that is certain. But is everything supposed to be easy? 

Anyone who has worked hard on something and then seen it come to fruition knows that feeling of gratification, that sense of accomplishment; that high from creating something out of thin air. “I did this!” your soul wants to shout from the rooftops. But maybe this is me having a mid-life artistic crisis. Each generation resists and resents something new. For my parents, it was being able to rent movies and watch them at home instead of “going to the pictures.” And skinny jeans. They really didn’t like skinny jeans. Am I just getting old, or is there some merit to wanting my kids to have to work harder to craft an essay? I want their brains working more, not less. They already have 4,342 hours of screen time each day, do they really need more time engaging with electronics?

Or is the real concern that AI will replace humans? Will it get so good at generating art in all forms that we as human creators will become obsolete? The Oxford Institute for Ethics in AItells us in no uncertain termsthatthe potential risks are substantial. 

“As AI becomes increasingly advanced, its capacity for creative output might eclipse its human counterparts, and in doing so render their creativity irrelevant. The second possible threat is instrumental. In this case, the threat posed by AI is not one which emerges from the relation between human and artificial creatives directly, but rather from the way that AI will be integrated by existing profit-seeking economic structures in society. Due to the very low cost of production, AI will be seized upon for its ability to provide an inexpensive but adequate product compared to more expensive processes which require deep human creativity. The workers made economically redundant in this revolution will then no longer exhibit as much creativity as they had when they were paid to do so.” 

So, yes; just like the downfall of so many photographers over the past decade, or the artisan carpenter who makes handmade furniture, it is just less expensive to buy mass-produced machine-made goods. Is this the future for all trades? And most concerning, will this piece of humanity – the creative class –simply cease to exist?

As it doesn’t seem likely to be going anywhere anytime soon, perhaps I need to take my friend’s advice and lean into it? Nah. 

Hey Siri, please turn off ChatGPT. Thanks. Hope you have a good night.