Rise of AI art
AI can now generate drawings, paintings, music, and even code. Most unsettling, it doesn’t just make art, but it makes art that we believe is human. In a world where art is at the center of culture, makes up collector items, and informs perspective, AI’s presence in art is a takeover in the ways we think.
In a diverse world coming together through technology, preserving culture is significant to our identity as humans and identity as members of the communities that we exist in. We need the creation and prioritization of new art. Culture isn’t something we maintain, but something that evolves based on our human experiences in the world. AI can contribute to culture, but it cannot originate the lived experiences that make culture meaningful.
Creativity as humanity
What makes us human? I read through many articles, and I found overwhelming responses. However, one of the most prevalent, if not the most prevalent, responses I found was creativity. Empathy, consciousness, emotion, and ability to reason were among some other top results as to what makes someone human.
While not immediately clear, I feel there is a relationship between creativity and many of the other responses I found. Art allows us to convey various emotions, in turn showing empathy. Oftentimes, art can also allow us to think of ourselves within a wider image or at least provoke thoughts about deeper themes, prompting a sense of consciousness. Art, and creativity in general, requires problem solving and the ability to reason through challenges.
Even more, Dr. Robert Brooks, a psychologist who has written many books on parenting, believes that creativity is a foundational part of being human because of the boundaries it pushes personally and in our communities: “Our creative capacity enables us to imagine new possibilities, solve complex problems, and bring forth beauty and meaning in the world.” He adds that creativity creates a sense of individuality, separate from our parents, and also allows us to see a bright future.
These insights are important in understanding what brings meaning to the life of any person, and what we can do to enhance our lives even more.
How is defining what makes us human important?
You’ve likely never talked about AI so much as you have in this period of your life. Our conversations about AI reflect our fear and insecurity that come with an ever evolving world. Don’t get me wrong, AI has incredible benefits for us, but those benefits are what cause us to rethink what balance we need to maintain between the traditional world and the evolving world we live in. With the incredible benefits that AI brings us, we have to reevaluate what we as humans bring to the table. Rather than fearing AI will replace us, we think of AI as clearing up tasks that allow us to focus and give more time to areas with more potential. We need to find what our value in the future looks like, which means defining what AI’s value is.
AI can execute, but humans are required to define what’s worth executing.
Why creativity?
Creativity seems like a buzzword in the world of AI, but why is that? AI works by analyzing patterns from the past to make educated guesses for the future. This means that while AI can combine ideas or make well-informed strategies, AI is more limited within disciplines.
This is not to say that AI isn’t creative. In fact, AI is incredibly effective in the thinking of innovative solutions, but having the creativity to prompt AI in certain directions is incredibly important. If change is only made based on previous trends and what others have done, then we will forever be stuck in a world from the past, not a world where we are creating something new.
Think of it this way. An ice cream shop may have seven different flavors. You could mix all the different flavors, with different numbers of flavors, and you could get 127 different combinations. 127 is a lot, but the second you add your own flavor that tastes nothing like the others, the opportunities widen incredibly. You now can get 256 (double the amount before!), simply by adding one new innovative idea.
Why is all of this important?
We know why it’s important to define our strengths, but simply defining our strengths isn’t enough. Creativity is a skill. Like any skill, you need to practice it. Whether that be thinking of creative solutions in your day-to-day life, taking an art class, or even putting time aside to daydream.
If stretching your creative muscle doesn’t feel like enough of an incentive, the alternatives might be enough to scare you into practicing creativity. A lack of creativity can result in feelings of stress, anxiety, questioning of self-worth and purpose, mental stagnation.
These words of advice don’t come from a place of removed, online research. I’ve experienced the benefits of creativity in my own life, and I’m sure you have as well. When I start off my day with ceramics or finish my school day with ceramics, exploration, or with my social impact project on expanding creative opportunities, I find that I feel already focused and ready for creating ideas without having to go through the mental exhaustion and time drain of starting a hard task unproductively.
Creativity is something that helps us and has always provided incredible gains even in a less technologically advanced world. AI has fast-tracked society, and with that creativity must adapt fast too. We have to learn to build creativity to utilize AI to the fullest and protect ourselves from AI in the future.
Teach Through Art 