Artificial intelligence and human creativity: A tug of war 

AI has been a constant threat to many jobs – jobs that are repetitive, mundane and require no great creative skillsets. And that didn’t call for any fretting. Afterall, it allows human workers to focus on more stimulating skills while AI takes over the mundane tasks. 

Or so we have been told. 

But the last few months have entirely ousted our perceptions. Generative AI has already stunned us by doing tasks that are so far perceived to be done only by human beings – creating original content, music, images and videos, writing codes, generating new art pieces and so on.  In essence, human-like creativity at scale. In some cases, AI has produced better outcomes than humans. For example, generative AI has helped us design interplanetary landers that are lighter than the ones humans made. 

Generative AI, its opportunities and dangers have been discussed at length. Commercially available generative-AI tools have been booming in recent times. Chat GPT, Dall-e and Bard are perhaps the most popular tools. Several startups have entered this field with equally impressive products. 

The Bengaluru-based music tech start up Beatoven.ai, for example, uses advanced AI music generation techniques to compose unique mood-based music for video or podcast content. All you need to do is choose the genre, tempo, duration etc and let the AI create the piece of music that can be used as the original, royalty-free background score for your video. 

Generative-AI has been showcasing incredibly cool and impressive (and a bit creepy at times) outcomes which brings us to the quintessential question – will AI replace human creativity? For now, say experts, no. 

“Despite its potential, AI cannot support all human skills that are essential for idea development, such as real-life observations or personal interactions. In addition, exploration without a dedicated outcome in mind, adding new domains of knowledge on the go and improvisation are challenging for AI. For example, a tool that optimises flight routes in terms of CO2 emissions would not simply suggest that we switch to transportation via trains or meetings via video conference,” emphasises a report from GDI Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute. 

Let’s hear what Chat GPT had to say. Slightly verbose answer, yet definitely relevant:

For now, humans can continue to feel greater, for their ability to be unpredictable and for the presence of sentience. But will that be the scenario forever? We don’t know yet. But Artificial general intelligence (AGI) which signals ‘singularity’ – a point when AI surpasses human intelligence – will likely happen in a remote future. 

If we were to borrow the words of none other than Noam Chomsky, Programs such as Chat GPT, Bard and Microsoft’s Sydney “have been hailed as the first glimmers on the horizon of artificial general intelligence” — the point at which AIs are able to think and act in ways superior to humans — we absolutely are not anywhere near that level yet. That day may come, but its dawn is not yet breaking, contrary to what can be read in hyperbolic headlines and reckoned by injudicious investments,” Chomsky wrote in his op-ed for New York Times.