How AI can be embraced, rather than feared, by creatives

During a May 13 product demonstration of OpenAI’s GPT-4o chatbot, one of its digital assistant voices, “Sky,” caused the tech and culture worlds to recall “Her,” the 2013 film in which a writer falls in love with an AI-powered operating system, voiced by Scarlett Johansson. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s one-word comment on X—“her”—led some, including Johansson, to express concern that Sky’s voice sounded “eerily similar to mine.” “In a time when we are all grappling with deepfakes and the protection of our own likeness, our own work, our own identities, I believe these are questions that deserve absolute clarity,” the actress said. This situation goes beyond the usual concerns over AI—that it is laced with and amplifies human biases, that deepfakes will rewrite our understanding of what is real, even that the technology’s approaching sentience will lead to our extinction. In fact, the event has amplified the creative industry’s most confounding question: How should creators interface with technology that can convincingly mimic original thought, works and even identity? Creative knowledge workers feel the tension. On one hand, many of us are early adopters who see promise and opportunity in exploring and testing AI tools. But many corporations are also rightly focused on the protectionist aspects of this new technology—namely around protecting IP and how to manage legal exposure. Regardless, a dominant result of this tension is fear, which leads to a slowdown in invention, creation and imagination. In fact, more than 85 percent of innovation practitioners report that fear often or always holds back innovation. At the same time, only a quarter of organizations understand this fear and fewer than 11 percent are doing anything about it. The funny thing is that invention—and its inherent optimism—is exactly the light that can quash such fear. There’s no doubt that we creative folk can envision AI as an existential threat. This goes deeper than jobs, as we fear it replacing humanity’s soul. But, as evidenced in any religion’s theology and history, the greatest power is the act of creation. Perhaps it’s no surprise that many monotheistic religions also underscore the notion of “submitting” or “relinquishing” themselves to that power. Rituals aside, there’s a powerful clue for us to follow toward unlocking the creative potential of AI. What if we allowed ourselves to come to grips with the limits of our control? What if we allowed ourselves to see where this could take us? Here are 4 ways to get started: Use AI to reveal truths Rather than aiming for perfection of our outputs, creators can use AI to uncover human flaws and biases. Can we use AI to point out our knowledge gaps, biases and assumptions in an effort to avoid the blind spots in our own creative pursuits? Prioritize the collective good Whether it’s photography, graphic design, marketing or journalism, creators often design with a specific audience in mind, risking the imposition of their own biases. In pursuit of designing that single-minded embodiment of “who this thing is for,” we often fall into the trap of flattening them and imbuing them with our own biases and preconceptions. Plenty of pixels have already been spilled on the way AI is hard-coded with the culture of the programmers, and as far as we can tell, we can’t stop that. Viewing AI as an assistant rather than an oracle, we should consider the humanity of our audience and guide AI to foster imagination rather than merely mimicking our own human thought. Find fuel in the fear of the unknown Humans have a deep-seated protective instinct—ask anybody who hates horror movies. And it’s tightly wound into what we don’t know or can’t imagine. Fear itself is not inherently bad or dangerous. We can use our responses to fuel our imaginations. Can we fill in the gaps of what we don’t know or can’t see with similar ideas we do know and can see? And can we draw inspiration from this practice instead of fear? See all of Ad Age’s 2024 Creativity Award winners here This does more than improve the way we use AI tools; it resets our brains into a fundamental creative state. It pushes us to seek out the dark corners and replace fear with desire. Get drunk on imagination Authors Cal Newport and Jenny Odell write extensively on the benefits of deep work—where we find depth in an increasingly distracted world. We all know that our lives are full of interruptions, tasks, and left brain work (analysis, order), yet we still persist in holding our right brain (intuition, creativity) back. The oldest wisdom is the best wisdom: allowing ourselves time, space, and freedom unlocks the dopamine and energy we need to replace our vigilance with curiosity. AI is more than a tool. It’s a spirit. One without form, imbued with energy that we can grow with if we choose not to control it, but to dance with it. We should explore the spirit of AI rather than its function. It is something that can ultimately help us if we take the leap to elevate our instincts beyond fear and embrace desire.

How AI can be embraced, rather than feared, by creatives

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