In recent decades, the mighty buzzword AI spread from one industry to the other like wildfire, sparking widespread concerns about people losing jobs to machines.
While everything on the mainland slowly caught flames, one group always seemed safely situated on their own private island: people with creativity. Remember? It’s only a few years ago when creativity felt like this one thing robots could never challenge us humans on. Cashiers, manufacturers, warehouse workers — most will agree, AI is a threat for them. But for writers? Musicians? Entrepreneurs? Never!
Well, recently we entered the era of Generative AI. Is it finally time to panic?
The feeling of generative AI
AI has long overtaken us in countless disciplines: we are worse at math, worse at chess, worse at detecting cancer from scans. Is it creativity that makes us think differently? The ominous C-word; our ability to think and create new, surprising and useful things or ideas; the art of imagination.
In November 2022, I had one of those eureka moments you occasionally get in life when I tried OpenAI’s freshly launched image generator DALL-E 2 for the very first time.
Back then, I was pretty curious about AI and followed news on deep fakes, early image generators and GPT-2. The difference: all these things were either clunky or not accessible to the wider public to try out. But when I started playing around with DALL-E I knew I touched something unearthly.
I could write a prompt like “Painting of the Monarch, Orange cat Otto von Garfield, depicted wearing Prussian Wear and eating his favorite meal – Lasagna” and voilà, it created precisely that. Try it yourself.
It was eerie and yet captivating, like witnessing magic unfold before my eyes. Since then, countless generative tools, such as ChatGPT, have emerged, making it easier than ever to rapidly generate high-quality content.
With all of this, I could be terrified of AI invading my creative island, but surprisingly, I am excited. I know that AI made me more creative than ever before. Why?
The extension of human creativity
Since touching Generative AI, I know that there is no way back anymore. (That is for all of us by the way.)
An example: Recently, I created a short video about me that I want to attach to my resume. At one point I wanted to emphasize my love for innovation, but instead of saying it myself I asked ChatGPT to come up with an In-N-Out pun to describe my innovative skillset and I combined the best suggestions into a one-liner. Then I downloaded a speech of Barack Obama and synthesized his voice with ElevenLabs to create a fake voiceover.
After, I downloaded another video of Obama and made sure the gestures and mimics in the video matched his fake voiceover. Lastly, I generated new lips that were in sync with a tool called Wav2Lip and assembled everything together.
I didn’t need to leave my room or spend a single cent, and still I somehow created a highly convincing version of the former president saying that my “knack for innovation is like a Double-Double: … a juicy combination of quality and value.”
Without AI? Not imaginable. And certainly not doable.
Is generative ai genuinely creative?
Creativity, to me, is like a journey from point A to point B.
Point A is where it all begins, in our brains. Point B is the output. It can be a song, an essay, a business idea. But time constantly changes how we reach point B.
A long time ago, ideas left point A, the brain, and were never captured, because all our ancestors could do is communicate verbally. Then we learned how to capture ideas on walls, then on paper, then printed, then written, then typed, then digitized, then generated. No next step was ever doable before breakthrough advancements.
But innovation doesn’t just change the journey from A to B: it also changes what point B can actually be. It stretches the limits of our imagination. It makes things imaginable that were unimaginable before.
Without AI my output, point B, would never have been Obama. It was technologically not possible; therefore unimaginable. But my idea, point A, was always deeply human. AI didn’t dictate my actions; instead, it helped me navigate the journey and bring the idea in my mind to life. And it formed what that idea can actually be.
Implications of generative AI
So, will generative AI replace human creativity? Yes and no.
It will certainly replace many hours that are currently routine because AI is just brilliantly good at cutting through crap. Following my earlier analogy, you can see how AI will immensely accelerate our journey to point B. That frees up countless hours that we can spend on other things.
If we reach point B way faster, that means we can…
- Create content of the same quality as before at a fraction of the speed
- Use the same amount of time to create content of much higher quality than now
Today, when I compose music, I use LANDR to master my songs within seconds, sparing me hours of manual work. I use ChatGPT to help me with brainstorming. I use DALL-E to add objects to photos. AI not only made me a faster creative; it made me a way better one.
Long story short
Very soon, we will undoubtedly feel a big shift, and we will need to adapt. But while AI’s impact can at times be intimidating, history proves that innovation never fully replaces previous forms of creative expression. Many still sculpt by hand, calligraphy remains an art form, and countless musicians continue to record with analog equipment, regardless of the digital revolution. Not everything in this world is about efficiency or financial maximization: Some things are truly about heart and soul.
The impact of AI is a very serious topic, I believe it will have the biggest implications on our lives that we will ever experience. But so have a handful of technologies for other generations before.
Maybe I’m an optimist. Maybe I simply have no idea what I am talking about. But what can we do? I guess really embrace it — and start learning how to better curate the upcoming storm of generated content.
Let’s become more creative! That’s what mankind has always done. Because no matter what we do, generative AI will stay.
Just like human creativity.
Dainius Krasauskas is an overly curious, long-haired European creative who loves to strategically break rules to create impact. Before joining USC to pursue a master’s in PR and advertising, he brought the Bavarian Prime Minister to a former employer to play with robots, art directed a rap video with over 20 million views for a soccer superstar, and composed music for one of Europe’s largest modern art museums. He also loves the early seasons of The Simpsons, tech innovation, bossa nova, and, also, the early seasons of The Simpsons.