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AI & Human Creativity, A Path Forward?
Humans have long incorporated technology into our creativity. In the age of AI, this takes on new meaning. How can we do it?
Sitting under the swaying palms at the edge of a silvery, sandy beach in 1962, anthropologist Margaret Mead, was fascinated as she watched a group of Papua New Guinea artists painstakingly weave bits of aluminium from crashed World War II planes into their ceremonial masks. They didn’t see this modern technology as a threat, but rather as an evolution of their creative expression.
A Brooklyn based musician was recently noted as saying that “working with AI is like having a conversation with a peculiar collaborator who knows every song ever written, but has never felt heartbreak.”
We are in a period of tension today similar to those artists in Papua New Guinea and no doubt, other artisans throughout history who have faced working with new technologies. Much like how the Catholic Church looked down on the printing press for the creation of bibles. That was also about a loss of power, but that is an aspect of all new creative tools and materials.
When the telegraph began to see mass adoption around the world, some decried it would be the end of poetry as we know it. What largely defines this moment is the tension between vast troves of stored data, computational “knowledge” and our…
