Creativity, GenAI, and Fear of People Using It.

Albert Einstein may have said it best: "Creativity is seeing what others see and thinking what no one else ever thought."

Certainly, the development of the technologies behind generative AI (GenAI), and ChatGPT specifically, has been, bar none, one of the most significant creative and technological breakthroughs in our lifetime. The technologists charged with developing and training the algorithms enabling computers to create every type of conceivable content have been nothing less than brilliant.

Artificial intelligence (AI) itself is not particularly new; it has been a part of our lives for decades, albeit in the background. One example is Google's rules and algorithms for searching and revealing answers. However, GenAI takes this further: it searches and creates things, such as copy, design, and even voices. The speed of today's GenAI technologies, their access to and training on vast, often disparate datasets, and their wide array of tasks performed make GenAI significant and significantly different.

These transformative technologies have proven to be a wonderful thing for marketers. They have set the stage for efficiency and automation, theoretically freeing time for creativity rather than repetitive tasks. And hopefully, like Einstein’s quote, “to spur creativity and thinking …” Or has it?

Collaboration is the essence of creativity.

But AI, GenAI, and digital marketing tools are all poised to disrupt collaboration. The combination of these three technologies has eliminated the need for a team to gather in a conference room to collate a book or orchestrate a mailing, activities I remember well from my early law firm days. Back then, we sat around a conference table, talking and joking, munching on snacks, and learning about one another. This fostered a different type of team collaboration. Today, ‘mindless’ activities are now handled by technology and have been separated from the hard-core thinking on strategy. Now, team members can stay at their desks (or work at home) to independently handle the ‘important’ stuff. Presumably more efficiently. But without the collaborative downtime for pretzels, a beer, and the ‘getting to know how they think’ conversation with the team. Technology, while impressively optimizing marketing automation and sales enablement, has also cut into the time humans previously spent creatively collaborating.

Data does not provide higher-level thinking; it leads to it.

Yes, new technologies have optimized and automated data analytics, normalizing all sorts of data points presented to you in files to exploit for learning or research. Again, these tools free up time for higher-level thinking. Yet, this has also eliminated the ability to see what you have and what might be missing, enabling pivots in real-time. The focus on data inputs has made assumptions about what the data outputs may mean. For instance, if a firm’s model on client stickiness is based on specific rules and inputs, how accurate can these assumptions be when fast-breaking information about the competition and market changes are absent from these rules? Or suppose the production of personalized insights and campaigns for segmented audiences and targets is based on static data. How correct will they be with real-world change, only obtained by human input, conversation, and thought?

In other words, data often ‘spits out’ only a portion of the story; humans can see the context and a fuller picture. A model trained on yesterday’s data will not predict tomorrow’s crisis.

Project management workflow tools see what, but not how work gets done.

Capturing how work gets done is directly related to human creativity and problem-solving. While accessing information on a project in real-time is critical to completing it, these tools may focus more on quantifiable inputs than qualitative aspects. It is the qualitative aspects, the nuances of collaboration and creative thinking, that often lead to breakthroughs and genuine innovation.

Data-driven project management tools can analyze skills and workloads or help managers reallocate staff and resources as needed. They can predict potential delays or bottlenecks that can influence how decisions are made. And they can generate reports and impressive dashboards. However, overreliance on these tools may lead to reduced communication across teams and team members who may focus on their assigned tasks without a broader understanding of the complete project context. When AI recommendations are taken at face value, teams lose strategic insight from human intuition and experience. These recommendations should never replace one-to-one conversations within and between teams.

Generative AI has emboldened humans, which is both good and bad.

We are now seeing the ‘sameness’ factor in the output of the GenAI tools the marketing teams may be using. Here is where we need to remember the spark of human creativity and what Einstein said about it, “… seeing what others see and thinking what no one else ever thought.”

Relying on GenAI for writing or graphic design is tempting. It allows you to create and publish quickly and easily without outside resources, talent, or expense. Yet, relying solely on GenAI output feeds that sameness back into the AI algorithm and negates human creativity, input, judgment, and ethics. How many times must we see first sentences in articles and LinkedIn posts that start with “In the rapidly changing real estate sector …” or “In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape …” or “In today’s ever competitive business environment …” or “In today’s ever-evolving legal landscape …” Creative humans do not write like this.

Sadly, using these tools has led to human boldness, with some copying rather than creating. It is not OK to be inspired by someone else’s work and not cite and give them credit. With GenAI, the model has been trained and fed endless content, often from unwilling sources with no knowledge and/or without permission. As a result, it is impossible to determine who initially created and generated content and designs, further contributing to the sameness factor and sadly resulting in stealing rather than inspiring.

Ultimately, it is not just GenAI that may pose threats to humans. It is the daring tactics of other humans simply taking someone else’s ideas, creativity, and inspiration. Take, for instance, social media posts offering guidance on using AI to take the watermark off a photograph to avoid paying for proper usage. This is not a good use of technology, our brains, or our ethical constitution.

What makes a creative person, and how do they demonstrate that creativity? What is the essence of their inspiration? Technology may be a terrific aid. But relying on it to create is not terrific. We can all do better.

"Creativity is seeing what others see and thinking what no one else ever thought."

– Albert Einstein