The Muse visits during the act of creation
Where exactly is the better world through artifical intelligence?
I recently stumbled upon a LinkedIn post by tante, commenting on the current hype of AI, more precisely, on the a recent incident at SXSW 2024, where a euphoric reel about AI and its future has been booed by the audience. I quite liked his thoughts and accusations towards the AI hype:
Because where are all the promised gains in efficiency? Where is the better world? All we see is a wasteful technology that's propped up by VC and Microsoft money that's easily detected as a way to further centralize our digital infrastructures while laying our digital spaces to waste.
And further:
Some systems labeled "AI" today will stick around. Especially the non-generative stuff (for image processing, object detection, pattern recognition in data streams, heuristics to detect errors in work products, etc.) but a lot of the #genAI field is just spam creation. And it's actually making some - especially creative things - harder to achieve.
The overall promise of “artifical intelligence” and generative AI being creative and supporting creative work, made me suspicious in the first place, and tante has the right quotes and references for my scepticism:
Famous film critic Roger Ebert once said “The Muse visits during the act of creation, not before.” and the booing is people coming back to realizing this simple fact. You are not creative and then create something, you become creative by working on something, creativity is a byproduct of work.
I will tell this to all my students and colleagues and friends and anyone else, too. This quote by Roger Ebert is the ultimate hall pass to be weird, to do something unexpected, to surprise yourself and others. Test your boundaries, dip your toes into the unknown. It’s what adds joy to life and work. Joy is a huge part of creative processes—and outcomes.
In this way AI is deeply dehumanizing: Making the spaces and opportunities for people to grow and be human smaller and smaller. Applying a straitjacket of past mediocrity to our minds and spirits.
