Before getting into a debate on whether AI can replace human creativity, something primitive and prehistoric, we need to negotiate a larger topic. Earlier on, creativity was understood to be an intellectual expression of a complex thought process. However, with generative AI creating artwork when briefed about it with prompts, the question that faces us today is – what is creativity? Has the definition been changed forever, and now we cannot think of creativity without competing with AI consciously or subconsciously?
The question becomes even more pressing with time as AI become exceedingly powerful. It is not just art; it now ‘threatens’ to even replace commercial art, acing marketing-advertising campaigns, writing poems and music, and forcing us to push our boundaries. In this article, we will explore the extent to which AI can keep up with human creativity and try to figure out if AI would be the first to produce creativity that goes beyond the abilities of human faculty – a truly emergent art.
AI can replicate, but can it create?
AI can be called creative to some degree because it does produce art from prompts. The prompter had not imagined the art to be as the AI has created, so it appears that AI does have some creativity to produce art. Douglas Hofstadter in his 1979 novel, had predicted that such technology might emerge that would not only replicate what humans do but go beyond that and actually ‘create’ something. However, in hindsight, we cannot refute the fact that whatever AI creates is actually plagiarised to such an extent that it becomes unrecognisable and hence deemed creative.
However, AI art generator applications like Midjourney have surprised developers and users alike by generating ‘emergent art’. According to the developers, it had generated something that it had not processed before and had entirely ideated on the basis of prompts. Does that mean AI has developed cognitive faculties and become sentient? As of now, we do not have a clear answer.
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The advertising sector has been forthcoming in understanding the role of AI and implementing it successfully. It is safe to say that this sector is one of the few that has implemented a collaboration between human beings and AI and used it for commercial purposes. Thus, it can be inferred from here that AI has conceptualised the idea of marketing and advertising to an impressive extent. However, there is yet no cause for concern that AI will actually replace the creative minds behind the witty and humorous commercials we watch. AI can, however, assist creative thinkers with new ideas that could be worked upon and a more ingenious concept created, all within a very short span of time. If regulated properly, these entry-point ideas can be bias-free, thus giving rise to wholesome advertisements – an advantage of collaborating with AI.
AI and entertainment creativity
The entertainment sector is making full use of AI to enhance its creative ideas. Production companies are using AI in two ways. First, it deploys AI to write the initial concept of a film or dialogues to go with creative scenes envisioned by the creative directors. Second, AI is being used to analyse a film script and predict its performance at the box office. AI can accomplish these tasks successfully because of its superior machine learning and data analysis skills. However, the rampant use of AI in cinema must be transparently explained to the consumer, e.g. the audience. This norm seemed to have found more reason to be established because of the Emila Perez controversy at the Oscars. The makers used AI to enhance the musical scenes of the film, the non-disclosure of which had sparked controversy.
Creative authenticity: is it a myth?
It was Margaret Boden’s 1990 book ‘The Creative Mind’ that categorised creativity into three types: exploratory, combinational, and transformative. So far, it can be said that AI has shown some mastery over combinational creativity, chiefly because it has been trained to process data and churn out the best possible combination of information without losing coherence. However, when it comes to the other two types of creativity, AI falls short of creating something radical or something totally unprecedented on the part of its creators. However, this combinational skill of AI itself is no mean feat, as it promises to transform the way market research used to be conducted by financial institutions like NBFCs.
Conclusion
The final word on how AI is to be used in the online marketplace already has some written and unwritten rules. Put to the best of its use, AI can be an exceptional tool that can assist and to a certain extent fuel, the human imagination. Its use in the tech, finance and marketing space has been revelatory so far but it would be too far-fetched an idea still to claim that AI has gained sentience and can replace human creativity.