Is using Gen AI to be creative cheating?
Whilst enjoying another great pint of Guinness, I started dwelling on an incident at a recent Gen AI workshop I was running. I was sharing with the group some case studies. Things that the likes of Walmart, Morgan Stanley and HCA are already doing. I use these as ten second vignettes to inspire people to think about their own ideas. I’ve done it with hundreds of people, and it works a treat! After hearing about ten simple use cases people end up thinking ‘o, right, this isn’t rocket science, this is about transforming parts of our business; customer services, procurement, workflows, etc. I get it now, we can do that!’
On this one occasion, I was sharing how Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) are using Gen AI as an assistant to help their architects come up with new designs for buildings. ‘That’s cheating!’ came a cry from the audience, ‘you pay them to come up with ideas and designs, not a machine!’ My retort was unconscious, ‘I’m sure the first accountant to use a calculator or spreadsheet faced the same criticism, it’s just a tool to help you get the job done more efficiently,’ I said.
Well, that did it. My audience was in open rebellion. Which, given this was supposed to be a ten second drive by of an example, wasn’t great. I let the heated conversation run on a bit between participants and then moved us on to the next case study, trying to avoid getting dragged down a rabbit hole. I needed to keep us on track.
As I’m sipping this perfect pint of Guinness though, I’m reflecting on the ‘that’s cheating!’ ZHA’s CEO, Patrik Schumacher says “Don’t pretend that AI wasn’t involved. If anything, the client shouldn’t be worried, as it should mean that you’ve selected from a larger pool of contenders and therefore theirs is more of a ‘winner proposal’.” He’s pitching the idea that Gen AI is enhancing the service and range of ideas (it also saves the firm a lot of time and money too).
He’s right, of course. That’s what Gen AI does, it uses inputs to ‘generate’ new things, that’s why it’s called Generate AI. So why was the person at the workshop and the subsequent debate so heated? What’s the difference between using a spreadsheet in finance to help add up some numbers and a tool to help generate some ideas and designs for new buildings?
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I think it comes down to one of the core things that makes us human and different from machines. Machines are great at repetitive tasks, things that can be coded like processes, workflows and working out patterns, like what’s likely to be fraud or a tumour. They’re good in a linear way. Feed a machine lots of data and it will provide you with a very good average output from all the inputs it took. What it doesn’t do very well is make jumps in ideas, it’s not very non-linear.
This is great if you want to automate applying for a passport, but not so good when you want to create the next Sopranos. Look at the music industry over the last few years. Large publishing companies trying to predict what will be successful using data and machines. The consequence is mediocre music. Where are the creative, non-linear bands of the past that continually changed music? The Beatles, The Specials, The Ramones, David Bowie, Portishead, The Smiths, Metallica….? Where are the new comedy TV programmes? Monty Python, Blackadder, Little Britain? Where is the latest Waiting for Godot or Animal Farm? Where is the new Pompidou Building, the Chrysler Building, St. Pancras Station, the Notre Dame?
You might get lucky and a machine creates something fantastic, but more than likely it will just create something mediocre and predictable. This, I think, is at the heart of the emotional response in the workshop. Humans have the ability to create things that are new, unique and non-linear and we shouldn’t leave it to the machines, in fact, we should double down on it. It’s our advantage. It’s the thing that makes us different.
I think that one of the consequences of machine being used more and more to create content is that it will push us to the edges of creativity. It will push us to be more non-linear, more creative and push past the mediocre. It will create a new wave of human creativity. We may be in the beginning of the Age of AI, but we might be just be about to also experience ‘Episode V: The Human Strikes Back’. #genai #ai #businesstransformation
The Guinness? The George
It depends on whether or not the creators and copyright holders of the intellectual property used to train the AI models were compensated.
Perhaps a key thing about ZHA and Patrik Schumacher, for a good few years they have been at the forefront of the Parametric Architecture movement, that embraces fairly complicated maths as part of the design of the buildings - so AI in this use case is maybe a very natural progression rather than cheating. it’s just a better tool to help creative people develop their ideas.
Simon Sear - I agree that we will soon (if not already) be awash with mediocre content (the term AI slop is going around right now!). And so yes, I hope this does ignite a new era of human creativity, which most likely will be about physical experiences and human connection.
These tools will diminish our creativity and our critical thinking. I’m worried about the future.
Isn't it always going to be derivative? Based on next most likely word given a prompt. It could help do an amount of work I guess. But true originality? I doubt it very much.