Is Generative AI the Death of Creativity?

A lot of people are up in arms that AI is the death of creativity as it will replace artists and authors as nothing is sacred anymore if generative AI can create pictures and write stories.  I don’t agree.  Did the invention of auto-tune eliminate all natural singers?  Andrea Bocelli would tell you no.  

The way I think of it, is did the introduction of the camera mean no one paints anymore?  Did replicas and prints destroy the market for firsthand originals?  Did the introduction of 3d printing mean no one creates anything by hand anymore?  No, no, and no.

The introduction of new technologies has always spurred new trades (hello video camera) and given people opportunities that didn’t exist before, which includes new avenues for creative expression.  Video didn’t replace still photos; it supplemented it. 

A personal example is this website.  I have no computer science background and no coding experience but with the help of AI I was able to build this website from scratch – I didn’t have to do any heavy lifting; I just needed to tell a chatbot what I wanted.  If not for AI, I would have never been able to make my idea a reality (at least not without a lot of time spent learning how to code and quite frankly that’s not where I want to be spending my time).  AI was able to take what was in my brain and make it a reality and I think that’s amazing. 

Right now we’re all having a lot of fun putting prompts into Gemini and seeing the results (thank you Sara for creating a picture of your dog sad in the rain when I was leaving the country).  And a lot of people are asking AI to write an insightful LinkedIn post for them so they can seem like a thought leader.  I do think this mass proliferation will cause a pendulum swing in the other direction for demand for handcrafted and, what I call, “mind-crafted” works as people tend to value the rare and unique (else the market for mined diamonds would have collapsed by now with the introduction of lab-grown ones). 

Generative AI is a different type of creative expression, sure.  But like anything, there will be those that prefer the handmade handbag over the machine mass-manufactured one.  And for those artists and authors open to it, generative AI can actually be a great tool when one gets “stuck” as you can use it to help you brainstorm a little. 

Thoughts and opinions are purely my own, no ChatGPT here.  The above is just a brief conceptual summary, for more specific details, feel free to use ChatGPT.  I’d suggest a prompt along the lines of:

I want to explore ways in which AI can unlock my creativity.  I am interested in [XYZ] and I am good at [ABC].  What can you recommend?