ai didn’t kill creativity…we did

sigh

i saw this post on substack the other day…and i can’t. stop. thinking. about. it.

this completely shifted the way i think about the future of ai! like every time i log onto substack…i feel like every other week there’s a new essay about the rise of ai, or whether it’s moral to use chatgpt for writing prompts, or what it all means for the future of art. and i get it! it’s a big, scary shift: we’re watching something unfold in real time that feels both fascinating and deeply unsettling.

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but that quote just…hit different. because the truth is…he’s right. our obsession with virality…creating art for a feed (or a “for you” page) has been killing creativity way before chat gbt became a household name.

but here’s the thing.

ai might be able to write a novel in seconds…churn out a script for a movie in minutes…or spit out unique chord changes for a song. but what ai can’t do…is live a singular…complex…human life.

every single person on this earth has their own set of unique experiences, thoughts, and feelings that are specific to them due to the way they were raised, where they were raised, their skin color, their gender, their sexuality, etc…all of which shape how they see the world and how they move through it.

when it comes to creating art…those lived experiences (if an artist chooses to tap into them) can shape the foundation, intention, and emotional resonance of everything they make (if they’re willing to go there). that isn’t something chat gbt can fully emulate.

ai can’t fully understand what it feels like to be a black person pulled over by the police—the fear that a routine traffic stop could end their life.

ai can’t feel the bittersweet joy of seeing someone you used to love finally happy with someone else.

ai can’t experience the feeling of sitting at christmas dinner without a family member who used to be there.

you know when a singer breaks down during a live performance because they’re reliving something heavy and real they went through? we can feel that authenticity as listeners. or when a comedian, during a live set, makes a joke about something dark and the audience immediately goes quiet? we can sense the pain under the punchline.

ai can’t capture that in its entirety. ai can describe those things because it’s been trained on people talking about them, but it can’t feel them. ai has no nervous system, no lived trauma, no nostalgia, or no gut reaction.

to culminate this piece… i think the best way to combat this is for more people to share art that is genuinely rooted in their own unique experiences, rather than writing things that will cater to the algorithm. and to follow that up… i think it’s also especially important for us… as a collective… to support art that very obviously comes from a unique perspective only a human being could have.

because that’s something a machine will never, ever master.

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if you enjoyed this piece…here are some others i’d recommend:

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