By Jude Huck-Reymond

I am struggling to find the motivation to write my thoughts in this modern world. Not because I’ve run out of ideas that I want to share, but because my mind has become aware of shortcuts it can take in the creative process. Today, writing is more than a human activity. There are digital agents that exist now with the ability to be creative. Infinitely creative. They are powered by electricity, the most efficient energy form we have been able to harness. They are only limited by the instructions they receive by human input, for now. How can my biological creative systems compete with this novel, digital creativity? I am afraid to work on a new piece of writing because I am afraid I will allow these digital agents create it for me.

From an evolutionary perspective, this development in technology makes perfect sense. Creativity takes a lot of biological energy. It has been a privilege of humanity to be able to afford so much energy towards creative endeavors. This has changed. Is it the time and energy spent on something creative that makes it beautiful? Or, is it simply the content itself that we find beautiful, irrelevant of how it was created?

For instance, let’s compare two poems of exactly the same words, themes, rhymes, and rhythms. There is only one difference, the means by which they were created. One was created by a human and took weeks of thought and emotion to finally finish. The other used a 5 sentence prompt in ChatGPT and was completed in just under ten seconds. Which is more beautiful?

The big assumption is that the AI will generate the same exact poem as the human, which is unlikely. However, assuming they are exactly the same in content, what’s the difference? Why doesn’t every poet on Earth start using this technology to write their poetry? Why shouldn’t I use it to write all of my creative endeavors? Where is the boundary line between enhancing productivity and dampening the beauty of the work?

As we move into the future, it is very possible that humans begin to lose the evolved ability to be creative altogether because of widespread access to digital creativity. Meanwhile, AI will only improve and expand its capabilities, making it all the more likely. Biological creatures naturally want to preserve energy, its how we survive. For centuries, having creative skills was a means to survival because we collectively decided it was a valuable trait. What will happen when this trait is collectively outsourced to digital minds? How will humans spend their time when when every single person is an author, poet, actor, photographer, artist, and every other creative outlet you can think of all at once? Or when no one is creative at all? Maybe these two outcomes are the same.

Now, this was written by human fingers, but why should you believe me?