While this type of hype is predictable at industry-led events, again and again summit attendees were reminded that generative AI isn\u2019t just another flash-in-the-pan techno-bauble, like VR headsets, the \u201cmetaverse,\u201d or NFTs. It\u2019s actually revolutionary.<\/p>\n
The insistence betrays the measure of anxiety one might expect at a confab celebrating a power\u2013hungry industry staring down an energy crisis<\/a>. And the shuttering of a video-generating tool from one of the biggest companies in the game. And protests against the data centers<\/a> necessary for the technology to work.<\/p>\n Indeed, there was plenty of talk about how AI\u2014despite concerns<\/a> about how its great many \u201cefficiencies\u201d may change, or render totally redundant, the work of those toiling in creative fields\u2014is not an affront to human creativity.<\/p>\n Everyone seemed in agreement that what AI cannot do\u2014yet, anyway\u2014is \u201cgenerate\u201d its own ideas. \u201cThe origin of creativity is the human mind,\u201d said EA\u2019s Mihir Vaidya. Adobe\u2019s Hannah Elsakr offered similar sentiments, projected onscreen as an equation: (Humanity x Creativity)AI = Unlimited Possibility. We were told that \u201cstories are human\u201d and that, in this brave new world of unlimited possibility, \u201chuman judgment\u201d will be key. But AI\u2019s promise of instant gratification misunderstands the very core of human creativity.<\/p>\n AI boosters see human beings as almost purely idealized, creative engines: prime movers in an increasingly technologized process. In reality, creativity is revealed in work and the toil of figuring things out. One learns to play guitar by stumbling through Green Day power chords. One learns to write by writing, and rewriting, and futzing around with the shape and structure of sentences. You can\u2019t learn to write by just thinking about writing. Or \u201cgenerate\u201d a killer guitar riff by imagining it. Creativity is not just some commodity, trapped in the imagination, that can be tapped and sieved by technology. It is a skill that must be learned, not just unleashed. The dreaded \u201cgap between imagination and creation\u201d is not some inefficiency that can be ironed out by a computer program. It is where creativity itself emerges.<\/p>\n The other nagging issue is the results. A lot of the images demo\u2019d at the summit looked plain awful. They are conspicuously synthetic, digital, inhuman. Yet everyone applauds for them, as if they actually look good. In another session, Rob Wrubel, founder and managing director of AI studio Silverside, bragged about how his company used the tech to make a completely AI-generated holiday ad for Coca-Cola. Maybe I, too, live in a bubble, but I recall that spot being widely despised<\/a> and mocked. This, of course, was never mentioned.<\/p>\n The suffocating hype-o-rama made Kennedy\u2019s fireside chat a healthy dose of reality.<\/p>\n