Me: Human
Occasionally, and let’s agree that it’s more question and less conclusion, tossing a random digital stone at AI’s hall of mirrors cracks into something interesting.
That, at least, was my thought after a depressing Semiquincentennial weekend, when the only evidence of anything even marginally inventive was Trump’s crowd count at his midnight preen.
Letting my fingers do the asking, I typed in, “What’s a good definition of creativity?”
The answer that came back: “Imagination is the ability to think of things that don’t already exist. Creativity is the act of taking what you imagine and bringing it to life.”
Damn, that’s not only elegant, but it’s kind of useful.
Me: human. I bring imagination, intuition, empathy, and flesh-and-blood life experience that allows me to make the leap to the dark side of the moon.
You: AI, or any of a host of other tools, ranging from your basic hammer right up to your next-gen quantum thingamajig; all requiring creativity in the why, how, when, and how they’re paid for to be any damned good.
Us: we dream up new things and bring them into the world.
And, yes, I’m aware we’re talking about a moving technological target. You buy into the Silicon Valley accelerationist crack dream, and you’d have to think it’s “make room for AI daddy” in all three corners of the triangle between now and next week.
But that begs the question of what lies between, or better yet, what bridges the gap between imagination as the spark and creativity as the execution.
I’d argue it comes from two additional power-ups: judgement and taste.
The former, crucial in a world where both efficacy and merit remain inevitably speculative and ultimately subjective. The latter, the essential filter that stands between us and a world full of slop. Doubly so, he said, getting parochial, on planet advertising.
Both are invaluable in a world at risk of drowning in undifferentiated crap.
Both require the ability to consider possibilities that aren’t either discovered or limited by data showing what’s worked in the past.
Both are stubbornly and intractably human.
In fact, you only have to look back on the Semiquincentennial circus to understand why imagination and creativity, guided by taste and judgment, are going to be the durable connective threads going forward.
Not just because technology has so dramatically shortened the distance between idea and realization.
Not just because some clown wants us to believe that pretend volume is proof of vision.
And not just because the job isn’t to fill the void, but to fill the world with meaning.
Because, as everyone saw, and with the evidence of their very own human eyes, the alternative is an utter squander, a complete and total waste of precious time, talent, and opportunity.
Kinda gives me hope.
