Those striving in an artistic direction who were not lucky enough to train young have a far more difficult time because now a training period that does not produce anything that supports a living has to be balanced with actually making a living. Time is the essential resource and as more of it gets allocated to making a living, less and less of it is available for the training period, making the time this period requires to be much much longer. This weighs on the human psychology: progress is slower. Success feels further and further away, and the dream of "making it" often starts to feel more like a delusion than an actual, tangible possibility. Let's put it this way: if a parent said to a child "if you're crayon drawing isn't good enough, you don't get dinner." How many children would just give up right then and there and start crying? If you have any experience with children, you'll likely agree that the percentage is high. Very high. Again, this is essentially the psychological situation of your average "starving artist".

 

There ought to be a distinction made here about degree of creativity in a given production. Perhaps controversial, but is the creative engine involved in writing a novel script that is thought provoking and incredibly entertaining the same has the creative engine involved in the graphic design for the movie's poster? This is a weird and uncomfortable question. Uncomfortable because it forces beloved activities into a hierarchy that may imply that one is better and one is worse. The reality is this isn't the right question to ask, but it is a relevant question in terms of the fear of AI. There is a hierarchy of tasks for which AI is steadily climbing. The question is not to point out which creative "skill" is better or worse but to say that there is an order of which one will be subsumed by AI first.

 

This order of subsumption represents a spectrum of creativity, and at the end of this process of subsumption there is only one tiny piece of the spectrum of creativity that will remain. Let's consider a couple examples: traditionally a sound engineer would be tasked with removing dead space from a conversation. Having recorded and produced over a thousand podcast episodes myself, I'm well acquainted with this drudgery. I was exceedingly happy when this process became automated and I could get it done in a couple second instead of spending many many many minutes laboriously doing it myself. Compare this "creative" task which is on the low end of our spectrum of creativity (ie. it really doesn't require much creativity but it is part of this creative process) to the complete opposite: me sitting with a blank page and dealing with the cognitive situation of: I want to write a short story, what should I write? Or even better, how about this very essay you are reading. This morning while lifting weights I had some thoughts about creativity and AI that felt novel, and decided that I needed to explore the ideas. Now how does AI relate to this part of the creative process? Should I ask AI: Hey I have an idea for an essay about art in the age of AI and I think the title might be something like "The Crayon Question", can you write that essay in the style of Tinkered Thinking for me?

 

If anyone thinks this is a good idea then I'd like them to consider a couple analogous questions:

 

Hey, AI, I can you eat my food for me?

 

Hey AI, can you do my bench press for me?

 

 

Hopefully the point is obvious: Even if the AI is hooked up to some kind of robotic mouth where food can be physically placed and "eaten" this process is completely ridiculous because you'd fucking starve... since, you aren't actually eating the food. Or if the AI was hooked up to robotic actuators that could lift your bar, it's useless because it isn't your muscles that are using ATP to do it. The same applies to things AI can do which are truly creative. AI cannot run the neurological process in your mind necessary for producing something truly creative. It may be able to produce a similar outcome: but your brain will not change as a result of the process it takes to create it yourself.

 

When I had the thought that I would like to write this essay, I knew from years of experience writing over a thousand essays and short stories, that the experience would yield things that are simply not possible for an AI to accomplish. I know, and have known for a long time that the actual process of writing and essay or a short story is a process of discovery. This process doesn't just exercise my mind, it organizes and sharpens my thoughts. I get just as surprised by the next sentence as you do, because the reality is, I can't predict my next thought, I can only have  that next thought, write it down and then review it. AI can never replace that process, and that process is exactly what's going on when the child is plying crayon to paper. While the initial urge might be "I want to make a drawing for mummy" or it might be an after thought "I have a nice drawing, I'll give it to mummy," the literal action of creating the drawing is one of identical self-discovery. The child might have a topic or subject in mind just like I did while working out, but which line will be the 3rd one drawn or written? I have as little idea of that as the child does. Neither of us know until we actually get there, and it's the experience of the act and the changes it makes to us as a person which drives the behavior at a core level. 

 

Yes, this fundamentally core reason gets corrupted in a capitalistic framework. But it's entirely ignored in the current discourse because it unveils a very unsettling truth: much of the creative process in creative industries involves jobs that are the equivalent of color-by-numbers. This isn't to say there isn't skill involved. Sure there is, but it's not a skill which is unique. 

 

Unique is probably the only component of how people use language that grates my soul. Almost all misuse of language, I can understand and often appreciate: if someone understands what someone else is trying to communicate, then they are using language correctly, bad grammar and novel constructions be damned. But saying very unique is uniquely concerning, because the presence of an adverb to modify an adjective whose definition categorically excludes adverbs of this kind is to spout actual nonsense. Saying something is very unique is like saying that the color blue smells very century. Sorry what? Yes, exactly. A tangent on the word unique might seem uncalled for, but it's vital for a discussion of AI and its impact on artistic productions. AI might be able to produce incredible output that is commercially viable, but what it can never do is provide an artist with the unique experience of creatively exploring and discovering something new based on their unique perspective. The fact that AI can and will subvert the commercial viability of the final product misses the point of why art exists in the first place. We do art to engage in a highly personal process of exploration and cognitive development. The fact that we need to "make a living" is not a fundamental reason for making art; its a supremely inconvenient variable that pollutes incentives by linking our output to the procurement of basic necessities needed to operate a functioning human body in a tribalistically oriented society.

 

Anxiety ensues as AI ramps up to rob crafts people of tasks connected to creative activity. But why does AI have to come after the fun things? Why can't it do my dishes instead of replace me as a designer at work? Again we need to revisit the Order of Subsumption. AI can't do a janitor's job because AI doesn't have a body. AI currently only exists on a screen, and anything that can exist on a screen (writing, picture of a painting, etc) can be part of the training for AI. Now AI is starting to subsume digital tasks: agents, as they are called, which can  write and respond to emails - more color-by-numbers tasks that are far closer to drudgery than they are to true creative exploration. 

 

What the discourse on AI when it comes to art and jobs seems to lack is imagination that can extrapolate to definitive conclusions. The range of imagination on such topics seems to be like a weak lantern in a very dark field. They can imagine changes they can see, and that's it, and they regard those who can extrapolate to logical extremes as fanciful and unrealistic: Foomers and Doomers as they are termed. This is evidenced by the worker who is very anxious about AI taking their job, but doesn't really care or think about AI eliminating all of humanity, which one might think is the logical extrapolation of such an anxiously-focused person.

 

The most prevalent question in the discourse is: Well if AI takes all of our jobs, what are we going to do!? This question is further evidence of a total inability to imaginatively extrapolate. Your AI can't live your life for you. But it can and will replace you if you're doing a lot of monotonous work. But still, it can't live your life. And if your life garners the majority of its meaning from a job that is ultimately monotonous, then brace yourself for a very cold and very hard, spiritually infused slap in the face. I say this as someone who was laid off from a job that most people think is impervious to AI because I was replaced by an AI. I am not speaking from some protected pedestal claiming that everyone should eat cake. 

 

The human ability to adjust to new circumstances is, well, it's ridiculous, because it results in two entirely polar aspects of perspective. The assumption as a reader of this essay might anticipate me claiming that "we'll adapt!". While, eh, sure, but that's always true. I bring it up because of how fast and completely we resettle into new circumstances to such a degrees that we're blind to relative improvements. The best example of this is the Louis C.K. skit about being on a plane and hearing for the first time over the intercom that it was a Wifi enabled flight. The Wifi inevitably crashes within a few minutes because it's a brand new system and the guy next to him on the flight says "This is bullshit." To which Louis C.K. acts out a mock reply to this person: YOU ARE IN A METAL TUBE HURTLING THROUGH THE SKY AND YOU GOT INTERNET ACCESS. It's funny because the guy calling bullshit is so completely and thoroughly located in his current situation that he fails to realize how utterly incredible that situation is when you compare it to say.... a 14th century peasant who has worked the same field for 25 years straight. This ability to adjust to new circumstances is both a blessing and a curse. We adjust, which is often uncomfortable and sometimes painful and requires us to grow and change, but once the change is complete, we settle in, and we do so with an intensity of laziness that is ultimately debilitating - even crippling - to our perspective.  It often requires another forced change due to abruptly altered circumstances in order to shake our heads free from our own assholes that are so tight they deprive our brains of the oxygen necessary to power an imagination capable of having a novel thought.

 

Even after reading this, most people are still going to be unutterably chained to the question: Well if AI takes all of our jobs, what are we going to do? I'll respond to the question with a question:

 

Think about the 14th century peasant and Louis C.K.'s airplane companion who thought broken wifi was bullshit. In a couple centuries, or perhaps even in a couple decades, Louis C.K's airplane companion will be the new 14th century peasant. Imagine what needs to change about technology and society and people so that a guy complaining about wifi on a plane seems like a 14th century peasant. 

 

Instead of focusing on what AI might take away from you, invert the concern and think about all that AI might come to be able to do for you. Imagine if the entire food production system became controlled by AI, and it could even perform maintenance on itself in any physical capacity. Imagine billions of robots that could do all the tasks that we don't like but which we do because we have to. The costs for such a fully autonomous system eventually trend to zero, because all that's needed is the energy to run it, which will get for free from the sun. It's just a matter of getting the requisite atoms into the correct configuration. The beginning of this process will be very expensive, but as the process moves forward, it will take over its own construction. 

 

The same can and may happen to an industry like housing: imagine, instead of hiring a contractor who has to buy all the materials and extra labor, you have time to design the home yourself, you have the time to learn principles of design, to create a home in VR and walk around in it, make changes to it, study the principles of Christopher Alexander, and build a living space that is so well attuned to your personality and your family that it is itself a unique work of art. Robots show up with materials that have been harvested and generated by automated systems and these robots build your house in a matter of hours, or a couple days. And when you want a change, robots show up again and renovate. 

 

Ultimately, the sun. But the start-up costs for getting this all going are huge, and rooted in dollars.

 

Utopia, is essentially, at its core, a coordinated set of automated systems that provides for humans in a way that parents provide for children, thus giving all humans the freedom to explore the way we endeavor to give children the freedom to explore and develop. If this seems fanciful and far fetched, please ask yourself how bright the lantern of your imagination is in this dark field of future unknowns. Certainly things could go wrong, be it nuclear war to blast us back to the Stone Age, or a paper-clip maximizer that turns the galaxy into a pile of paper clips.

 

The utility of discussing extremes is to try and induce some yoga on a mind that is too narrowly focused on local anxieties like: AI is going to take my job!

But what about now, and tomorrow? Instead of the next decade or next century. All of that utopia shit sounds great but how do I pay for groceries while I wait for heaven to materialize on earth?

 

My best advice is: Get weird. Embrace new technologies and try lots of things with it.

I have a good friend who is a film director and I peppered this friend with questions to try and get at the root of concerns around AI, the industry and making a living. The conclusive thought for this conversation was the realization that big studios with all the money control distribution, and it's this business & distribution issue that's at the core of the bottleneck for individual creatives who really shy away from thinking about "business stuff". I responded by saying: You could build a website, with payments and maybe subscriptions and just start making scrappy movies and put them on this website. It's not a global release in theatre chains, but it is global distribution! Youtube has a monopoly on this, and sure that could be part of the springboard. Perhaps release the first few minutes for free on YouTube and gain traction that way, but convert interested people to paying customers on your own website. Would this work? Maybe? The point is, it's never been easier and cheaper to run this experiment, and the sooner a person does it, the more time they'll have to grow it. 

 

Tinkered Thinking recently release www.printedthinking.com which is a Blog -> Book platform. I've had this idea for years, and realized a few months ago just how fast I could build and launch it now that AI effectively functions like a small team of software developers for me. Just yesterday I launched another product unrelated to Tinkered Thinking - an idea I had a few weeks ago which might be useful. I have a couple more ideas lined up which I plan to build and launch within the next few months. This speed of development and depth and range of experimentation was simply impossible a few years ago. Will these make money? Well Printed Thinking has paying customers. But the real answer is: you have to build it and launch it to find out. Same as any business.

 

The ground has started to shift under our feet, and it may dissovle into a veritable ocean, where many may drown if they are not quick enough to realize the change, stubbornly keeping their feet firmly planted where there no longer is any ground. Some are building their own sailboats and skiffs and some have some have Arks ready for the coming flood, and some will be quick enough to assemble rafts from driftwood in the swells. And while that all might seem terrifying, there's a good chance that after the initial flood we'll find floating islands in the wake, lush with a way of living that may even be incomprehensible from our current perspectives.

 

What is fundamental to understand is this: 

How you uniquely use these new technologies will be completely up to you, and that's not something an AI could ever replace.