I like to think of myself as a creative, and have often used AI when changing the tone in my writing or when I need help brainstorming and processing my thoughts. In this sense, AI has been a nothing short of amazing for me. While I value the creativity that my mind and imagination can conjure up, I am also appreciative of the ability that AI has to enhance my creativity by driving me to think of new perspectives and ideas.
1. “Ironically, many of these same creatives probably typed their manifestos on AI-powered smartphones or shared their outrage on social media platforms driven by sophisticated AI algorithms.”
Using a phone, which harbors AI technology, to share words written without AI assistance is not the same as asking AI to do the writing for us. For creatives to choose to use a smartphone but not AI is a reasonable line in the sand to draw. It’s important to make distinctions rather than to fully embrace or reject any concept.
2. “While creatives rage against the machine, they seem to have conveniently forgotten about the countless other professions that have already fallen victim to the relentless march of progress. Remember landline operators? How about payphone attendants?”
Campaigns to preserve the careers of landline operators, payphone attendants and other professionals—and then later, campaigns to retrain those affected by their loss—were created by graphic designers, copywriters and others in creative industries. Secondly, creative jobs are different from landline operators in that there is more personal expression in creative jobs, the training takes longer, and there is less social acceptance when its students are still learning their profession. In other words, it was all well and good for someone to train to be a landline operator or a payphone attendant, but to study art was to throw your life away in the eyes of society. There’s more sacrifice in terms of time and social acceptance, but more personal expression. That doesn’t make them more worthy career choices, but it does mean they aren’t the same as others.
3. “AI has the potential to enhance rather than replace human creativity.”
That entirely depends on what is meant by “human creativity.” AI will undoubtedly have myriad uses in commercial settings. Outside of that, there will also be users who do create new innovations with the technology. But not all aspects of human creativity can be enhanced by what is fundamentally a sophisticated aggregation tool. The reasons are too lengthy to explain in just one reply, but when technology advances at a rate that far exceeds the speed of our own evolution, it will invariably create processes and new options that, while convenient and powerful, aren’t good for us. I’m not convinced that newness is an inherent virtue or that creatives are somehow hypocrites or ignorant for not embracing every innovation. This technology, like everything else, should have its limits in terms of application.
One more thing: as a technologist and a photographer (creative), I disagree with the statement "it is fundamentally a sophisticated aggregation tool." I think it is too early to know what AI truly is from a creative perspective. I say this because years ago, traditional artists would say things like "digital art is not real art," or photographers would say any using the computer to touch up a photo is artificial. But you can't tell me that today as a photographer, and just try telling all the graphic and digital artists that their work is not art. Just a thought.:-) thanks again for engagement
My statement was not a philosophical one—it was a description of how the technology works. Large language models generate text by analyzing large datasets, identifying patterns, and then predicting words in a sequence based on the context of the preceding text. That's what the technology does. I did not mention or imply what photography is or is not, made no claims whatsoever about the nature of photography, graphic or digital artists.
I think there may be a misunderstanding on both parts. I used what I said because the article was about GenAI, not just LLMs. Although it is your opinion, saying "It is fundamentally a sophisticated aggregation tool" is not the same thing as explaining how the technology works. When you say "aggregation tool," it normally refers to software or systems designed to collect and compile data from multiple sources into a single, unified view or dataset. In contrast, LLMs create new text based on the patterns and context learned from their training data. LLMs can do predictive modeling and also learn and adapt to your context, which is far different from what a "sophisticated aggregation tool" can do. The word "aggregation" is not the same as "training data." I think that could be part of why creatives would have a issue, they think it is aggregation of their work vs understanding how the technology actually work by studying and learning and creating something new which is not unlike what humans in creative fields are taught.
Thanks for your response, and you're absolutely right – they are completely different career choices and the skill it takes to be artist are definitely not the same as the jobs I mentioned nonetheless is still a skilled that can be learned.
I like to think of myself as a creative, and have often used AI when changing the tone in my writing or when I need help brainstorming and processing my thoughts. In this sense, AI has been a nothing short of amazing for me. While I value the creativity that my mind and imagination can conjure up, I am also appreciative of the ability that AI has to enhance my creativity by driving me to think of new perspectives and ideas.
Some initial thoughts:
1. “Ironically, many of these same creatives probably typed their manifestos on AI-powered smartphones or shared their outrage on social media platforms driven by sophisticated AI algorithms.”
Using a phone, which harbors AI technology, to share words written without AI assistance is not the same as asking AI to do the writing for us. For creatives to choose to use a smartphone but not AI is a reasonable line in the sand to draw. It’s important to make distinctions rather than to fully embrace or reject any concept.
2. “While creatives rage against the machine, they seem to have conveniently forgotten about the countless other professions that have already fallen victim to the relentless march of progress. Remember landline operators? How about payphone attendants?”
Campaigns to preserve the careers of landline operators, payphone attendants and other professionals—and then later, campaigns to retrain those affected by their loss—were created by graphic designers, copywriters and others in creative industries. Secondly, creative jobs are different from landline operators in that there is more personal expression in creative jobs, the training takes longer, and there is less social acceptance when its students are still learning their profession. In other words, it was all well and good for someone to train to be a landline operator or a payphone attendant, but to study art was to throw your life away in the eyes of society. There’s more sacrifice in terms of time and social acceptance, but more personal expression. That doesn’t make them more worthy career choices, but it does mean they aren’t the same as others.
3. “AI has the potential to enhance rather than replace human creativity.”
That entirely depends on what is meant by “human creativity.” AI will undoubtedly have myriad uses in commercial settings. Outside of that, there will also be users who do create new innovations with the technology. But not all aspects of human creativity can be enhanced by what is fundamentally a sophisticated aggregation tool. The reasons are too lengthy to explain in just one reply, but when technology advances at a rate that far exceeds the speed of our own evolution, it will invariably create processes and new options that, while convenient and powerful, aren’t good for us. I’m not convinced that newness is an inherent virtue or that creatives are somehow hypocrites or ignorant for not embracing every innovation. This technology, like everything else, should have its limits in terms of application.
One more thing: as a technologist and a photographer (creative), I disagree with the statement "it is fundamentally a sophisticated aggregation tool." I think it is too early to know what AI truly is from a creative perspective. I say this because years ago, traditional artists would say things like "digital art is not real art," or photographers would say any using the computer to touch up a photo is artificial. But you can't tell me that today as a photographer, and just try telling all the graphic and digital artists that their work is not art. Just a thought.:-) thanks again for engagement
My statement was not a philosophical one—it was a description of how the technology works. Large language models generate text by analyzing large datasets, identifying patterns, and then predicting words in a sequence based on the context of the preceding text. That's what the technology does. I did not mention or imply what photography is or is not, made no claims whatsoever about the nature of photography, graphic or digital artists.
I think there may be a misunderstanding on both parts. I used what I said because the article was about GenAI, not just LLMs. Although it is your opinion, saying "It is fundamentally a sophisticated aggregation tool" is not the same thing as explaining how the technology works. When you say "aggregation tool," it normally refers to software or systems designed to collect and compile data from multiple sources into a single, unified view or dataset. In contrast, LLMs create new text based on the patterns and context learned from their training data. LLMs can do predictive modeling and also learn and adapt to your context, which is far different from what a "sophisticated aggregation tool" can do. The word "aggregation" is not the same as "training data." I think that could be part of why creatives would have a issue, they think it is aggregation of their work vs understanding how the technology actually work by studying and learning and creating something new which is not unlike what humans in creative fields are taught.
Thanks for your response, and you're absolutely right – they are completely different career choices and the skill it takes to be artist are definitely not the same as the jobs I mentioned nonetheless is still a skilled that can be learned.