Let the Robots Do the Grunt Work
Steady yourself.
Ready yourself. Another bloody column on Generative Ai. But in this breezily optimistic Happy Thoughts series it feels only right to conclude it with a cheerful slant on those robots licking their lips and preparing to eat our breakfast.
For whether we like it or not, Terminator and his chums are coming for us, wielding sharpened quills, paintbrushes and digital SLRs. The toothbrush is out of the virtual tube and after our industries teeth.
And teeth it shall get. No happy-clappy column can mask the fact that jobs will get swallowed up with creative gigs handed out to Hal and his pals. ‘Creative efficiencies’ becoming the euphemism for clients and commissioners to hide behind.
So how do we embrace this exponential onslaught? How in six-fingered-humanoid-hell can this lead to happier times?
Simple. In a world where ArtificialIntelligence is putting the act of creation out of work, we should be focusing on the art of thought. Cherishing, embracing and finding absolute fulfilment within it. For that’s what we’ll forever have over our robot overlords. As long as we live in a human world, that world will continue to need human ideas. Our human experiences, human pains, human problems. human thoughts and human processes can only ever be parodied by technology. “It will always be a replication, a kind of burlesque” said Nick Cave in his Red Hand Files ChatGPT take down.
So, let’s let them parody and caricature as they please, albeit on the boards we’d rather not tread. Give them the jobs that no one really wants. The churn that we’d rather not have to churn out. Let them copy check and help revise. Research and spit out reference. Replicate and resize our work into fiddly recesses. If they’re here to stay they may as well make themselves useful. Chuck ‘em the chisel and give ‘em the grunt work. All the while we double-down on the best bits, being a human creative being brings.
Let’s rub into the robots faces what they can never experience. The fact they’ll never find the joy in a stupid idea, laugh at their own jokes or giggle at the silliness of the ridiculous creative task they’ve been given. Relish in the fact we can have ideas when out for a walk. Allow our hearts to know today what our heads will form tomorrow. And find perverse and entirely unprofessional pleasure in starting a sentence in an internationally renowned creative magazine and not bothering to…
“Creativity is intelligence having fun”
That clever fella, Mr Einstein once said “Creativity is intelligence having fun” so let’s keep doing just that. For as long as we get paid for being creative in whatever discipline we’re in, we should be having fun with it. Not creating alone, but locking our creative cogs in with others. Not being precious with ideas but taking pleasure in giving them away. Not banging our heads against brick walls, but embracing ajar doors.Not fearing page one but jumping two-footed into page two. Not worrying about being good enough but content in reaching our own levels of human incompetence.And all the while embracing the fact we’re not making parachutes.
Maybe in a few years some digital ones and zeros will be laughing at the chutzpah of an average blood and flesh fella offering up Happy Thoughts for living a contented creative existence in this ever-changing world, but right now there’s still so much creative contentment to be found.
Create with the fun and freedom being a human affords. And enjoy every second of it. Happy thoughts for you all.
