Reflections
Talkin’ ‘bout AI generation: creativity versus artificial intelligence
Mr Stephen Fogarty
Director of Health and Physical Education
I’ve been thinking about creativity a lot lately. In writing this reflection, I’m asking you to collect your thoughts on it too. But first … some background.
Late in Term 2 of this year, I had a conversation with a work colleague who is immersed in the Arts curriculum. We were discussing a range of topics, but the conversation ultimately landed on music—a topic that he is eminently qualified to speak on. My colleague has a deep technical understanding of music, and a profound understanding of its emotional impact. Whilst I have none of his technical prowess, my lifelong love of music and my own understanding of its emotional affect, allowed us to have a satisfyingly thoughtful discussion even if, truthfully, he had to lower the technical ‘bar’ for me. Toward the end of our discussion, he made a statement that got me thinking.
He said: You understand, because you are a creative.
Am I?—I thought.
Rick Rubin knows a bit about creativity. As an influential music producer—helping create music with a diverse range of artists such as Beastie Boys, Adele, Metallica, Lady Gaga, and Johnny Cash—he is invested. In his book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being (2023), Rubin offers a spiritual treatise on creativity. He articulates the difficulty that most of us have in identifying ourselves as creatives, because we generally see creativity as the domain of artists. Moreover, he notes that we perceive creativity as something extraordinary or beyond our capabilities; it is maybe even a gift reserved for the special few who are born with it. I’m not spoiling the book in saying that he doesn’t agree with that assertion.
Rubin suggests that creativity is not a rare ability. Not only that, but it is also easily accessible. When seen in this light, creativity is a fundamental aspect of being human. One only needs to become (more) attuned to the circumstances whereby their creativity might flourish. In this sense, we need to remember our child’s mind—the one that allowed us to accept new information with delight and wonder—so that we allow ourselves to see the world through uncynical, innocent eyes, instead of through a lens clouded with existing beliefs.
His philosophy is simple.
The ability to look deeply is the root of creativity. To see past the ordinary and mundane and get to what might otherwise be invisible
Rubin, 2023Material for this experience is all around us. It is in the conversation with a friend or family member, or the overheard conversation between strangers. It is in observing a painting, or in observing elite athletes performing. It is in reading a book, listening to music, or mulling over different points of view in a classroom. Ultimately, it’s about paying attention to details that might otherwise seem unworthy of our attention—a colour combination, a pattern of events, or an unfamiliar turn-of-phrase.
Crucially, it’s what we choose to do with this world of information that defines the creative act.
Let’s look at writing as an example. At a time when it is easy to ask a few questions of an artificial intelligence program and have it generate a written answer in seconds, it is perhaps understandable that people might be tempted to outsource the production of a written response. Where’s the fun in that? I personally enjoy the challenge of starting with an empty page and, sometime later, seeing that same page filled with words (with some of them having even been arranged into coherent sentences!). As a process, it is both magical and mundane. In filling the page, I am drawing from that world of information; the one that I have observed, collected, and curated over many years. It is a world of information that is unique to me and, in creating something from that world, I add it to the universe where it will perhaps be used by another collector to create something else.
What of the ‘collector’ who is time-poor and outcome-driven? Despite knowing better, they might not find it hard to justify the use of artificial intelligence to generate a response and present it as their own. When I told people from beyond the School community that I was writing this piece, many of them suggested that I use artificial intelligence to generate it. I never even considered it. Again, where’s the fun in that and, in any case, why would I deliberately invite cognitive dissonance into my life?
Much of the AI-generated writing that crosses my desk leaves me cold. It has an uncanny valley quality. It’s mostly sterile in its execution, and it lacks something. It lacks warmth; warmth borne out of the human experience. Yes, I understand that AI draws from more information than I could possibly absorb in a lifetime, and that it is getting ‘better’ with each new request.
But, if we are willing to outsource our own writing, our drawing, indeed, our work, then we are giving up on an enormously important part of our humanity—the ability to create. Giving up on that innately human ability to experience the world and then to express that (what is, for each of us, a unique) experience, through the act of creation seems like too big a price to pay for expediency.
I’m still not sure if I’m worthy to be thought of as ‘a creative’, but I’d settle for someone to think of me as being creative. It’s my cognitive inheritance after all, and I would be dishonouring generation upon generation of those who have come before me if I were to let someone or something else create in my name.
I want to be creative, to be able to solve problems, to be able to express myself by drawing from my unique version of the human experience. In doing so, I will present an undoubtedly flawed, yet authentic version of my creativity—not something inauthentic, produced in seconds by artificial intelligence. Because the creativity is in the process, not the result. It is the act of creation that gives the product its meaning. I try to instil this in my students, but it’s not always easy. They are often concerned with the end result, or the final mark, or the way their subjects scale. Sometimes they tell me that they don’t have time to concern themselves with process; they only have time for the outcome. In effect, they are saying that they don’t have time to be creative and, in doing so, they diminish themselves. There is a place for generative artificial intelligence (even in our classrooms), but creativity is borne of struggle; the struggle to understand a concept, the struggle to direct a basketball into a hoop, the struggle to write the first sentence of an assessment task (or a Reflections article). I wouldn’t want to outsource that, because it’s an inherently human characteristic. It is the sign of creativity. It is the sign of a creative.
References
Rubin, R. (2023). The Creative Act: A Way of Being. Canongate.