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Generative AI gives everyone a canvas. That’s a good thing.
It’s fair to say that much of the commentary surrounding the apparently sudden emergence of generative AI this year has been negative, or at least skeptical. Some have been downright hysterical. Like any new technology, especially one that promises to automate or simplify a traditional human skill set, generative AI has the potential to create disruption, and the threat posed to some segments of the creative industry especially is very real.
Without dismissing those concerns, I’d like to make a case for what I consider an underexplored and beneficial aspect of generative AI — it can help turn any of us, all of us, into polymaths. You, as a business creative, can expand your horizons, fill gaps in your skills and help your employees do the same. Let’s take a deep dive into how.
For every person who waves their hand and says, “Oh, I can’t do math,” or gets a flop sweat when it comes to calculating the tip at a restaurant, there is at least another who says (or thinks) that they’re not creative. Traditionally this difference has been simplified in terms of ‘left brain’ versus ‘right brain’ thinkers. Left-brain thinkers are more logical and more comfortable with tasks and challenges that involve calculation and reasoning. Right-brain thinkers, on the other hand, are more creative in their thinking and more spontaneous. The so-called ‘hemispheric dominance’ theory isn’t without its detractors (lots of people exhibit traits that adherents of the theory associate with both hemispheres) but many of us have grown up believing that we’re either one way or the other. So we stick to our lanes, and our lack of confidence in tasks that are “other” becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
For both left- and right-brain-dominant thinkers, generative AI represents the ultimate hack, allowing them to effectively “sideload” a completely new skill set.
Perhaps most obviously, for anyone who has ever had trouble expressing their thoughts visually, or finding the right words to communicate a message or tell a story effectively, generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney could prove the creative collaborator they’ve always needed but never had.
I can tell you from my experience working at Blokhaus, the marketing and communications agency that I founded, that generative AI can be a valuable time-saver. We don’t use generative AI for client deliverables (it’s not good enough, and that’s not what our clients are paying for) but it can speed up the process of ideation and provide inspiration to our creative team (about the most “right-brained” bunch of people you can imagine), helping to spark ideas that help close the gap between “good” and “best.”
That shouldn’t be a surprise; artists have always been among the first and most enthusiastic adopters of new technologies (think world-renowned painter David Hockney’s iPad art, or the “computer art” of Harold Cohen and the entire genre of generative art that evolved from it) and I expect that ultimately, generative AI will be widely embraced in much the same way. That being said, I truly believe that human creatives will always have an advantage. Only humans can really recognize quality, and it’s this ability that makes all the difference when it comes to serving clients. AI can certainly help in output, but that’s all; you will always need curators and connoisseurs who recognize quality when they see it.
The Rolling Stone Culture Council is an invitation-only community for Influencers, Innovators and Creatives. Do I qualify?
Generative AI can also help right-brainers overcome limitations of a different kind. Slightly overlooked in the mainstream narrative about ChatGPT has been its ability to write code. While it isn’t (yet) capable of reliably coding entire applications from scratch, it can, if used carefully, generate useful code that can be used to develop simple applications. It can also do a pretty job of quickly auditing and debugging existing code. Generative AI won’t replace human developers for a while yet, but for beginners, it could certainly prove a valuable new assistant as they learn and develop their skills. Tools like Framer, Replit and others are already proving themselves invaluable assistants to this new polymath world we find ourselves in.
Another overlooked aspect of generative AI is accessibility. Not everybody has the means, or the physical or mental ability, to create. For some, just the time required to actually make work is a luxury they can’t afford. For these people, generative AI has the potential to at least be a force multiplier, but for others, it might be the only means at their disposal to express themselves creatively.
How many potentially great storytellers lack the confidence to write because of dyslexia, or the effects of a stroke? And how many painters put their brush down after losing their sight? Or were born with a visual impairment, and never had the confidence to pick one up in the first place? In all cases, solutions exist, but not everybody wants to work in collaboration with another writer or artist to translate their ideas and visions into reality.
This is a crucial point: The process by which AI-generated art comes into existence is one of translation and interpretation. The oldest rule in computing is “garbage in, garbage out,” and the best AI-assisted work will always be that where imagination and creativity was employed at the input stage. Arguably, generative AI tools are misnamed. The words and images that they produce aren’t ‘created’ by AI, so much as facilitated or revealed. In this sense, it might be clearer (and fairer) to speak about AI-assisted art. And I wouldn’t be surprised if, before too long, we see a high-profile exhibition of AI-assisted artwork from a sight-impaired artist or a best-selling novel authored by someone with severe dyslexia or alexia, written with the assistance of ChatGPT.
Generative AI isn’t perfect, but even at its current stage of development, it helps us to speak in languages that we couldn’t before. Whether you’re an artist who occasionally needs to do some simple coding, or a developer who needs to create an engaging graphic image, generative AI has something to offer. It’s not a fully-constructed bridge between the two brain hemispheres, but it is, at least, a stepping stone in the middle of the stream.
