Tech should help us be creative. AI rips our creativity away
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/21/tech-ai-creativityThree AI-generated songs recently topped Spotify’s “Viral 50” charts. One of the “creators” responsible for these songs, Broken Veteran, who squirted out a track about immigration policies, told the Guardian that AI is “just another tool for expression, particularly valuable for people like me who have something to say but lack traditional musical training”. It used to be that if you didn’t know how to do something, you wouldn’t do it.
I’ll never be Shohei Ohtani – I’m simply not handsome enough – but what if I could buy a robot to hit home runs for me? Could I then call myself a baseball player? Probably not, since I literally would have accomplished absolutely nothing, even if the robot wore a jersey with my name on it.
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And that is the real tragedy of all this AI slop and obsession with scale. Human experience is made secondary to chunky bits of code or esoteric values on a spreadsheet. One of the chart-topping songs believed to be AI, Walk My Walk, by a mysterious entity known as Breaking Rust, is a middling country song about self-expression and perseverance in the face of doubters. Not an uncommon topic for a song when generated by an actual human. The irony here is that the song about believing in yourself is apparently made by a computer. When you gives your artistic voice over to a machine, you invite a mediator into that expression. Something else is literally doing the talking for you. You are not saying anything. The machine is, based on what you have asked it to create. When someone uses AI to write a thank you email or a personal essay, they are abdicating their responsibility to articulate honestly.
Technology used to be seen as an instrument for our creativity. A pencil made it easier to record our thoughts. A typewriter and a personal computer did the same, increasing our ability to say what we felt or wanted. Now, technology is actively interrupting our dreams. Artificial intelligence is not a tool for creativity, it’s a wet nurse who burps little babies and feeds them mashed peas every few hours. If I don’t have to spend time learning how to write or make music, then what do I even do with my creative life? I suppose I could spend more time engaging with content. I could devote my remaining days on this Earth to listening to all 100m songs on Spotify. Doesn’t that sound completely dreadful?
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Raise better people? Sure. None of the problems of the world will be mitigated until then.
1. People need to demand genuine experiences in life.
2. Some need to create alternatives to the current poisoned punch bowl. Remember, "social media" and "for profit newsrooms" predated the AI craze. I've posted on Hacker News about this.
3. Somewhat like #1, we have a culture that glorifies crap. A cultural change is needed. It will only happen one person at a time, exponentially? But quality people need to inspire others and dammit, need to reach out. Proof? November 28th and December 1, where people race to stores (or online), risk their lives and cars in parking lots, and identity online, for cheap crap.
4. Somewhat like #3. Creativity is in everyone to some extent, but it's beaten out of them by the need for mediocrity on the part of my four horsemen: politicians, business tycoons, so called religious leaders "No critical thinking allowed" and by their natural companion to grab power, racism, which is not a person, but which infects people from exposure to others and by the cultural need to project onto yet others.
Creatives create. They don't consume the dregs as others are needed to do.
Example: I got the FM to work better last night, and there's only one classical station available. So, this morning, there's the usual movie music program, which is usually kind of interesting. So, (highly opinionated opinion coming) it features James Horner's music. Well, I have a good ear and it all sounds the same to me, like computer generated, stuff. I feel I could get out the recorder (the instrument) and fake it and nobody would know.
Long ago, someone was bragging on how "Three Times a Lady" was "scientifically" designed to appeal. Fortunately forgotten.
And remember "America's Home Videos?". Well, it's the entire GD internet now.
Garbage in, Garbage out.
When I hear something great, I run to the piano keyboard. When I read something great, I pick up my notebook (Moleskine or clone thereof). When I pick up a great idea on the internet, I file it in the "hot" folder for a possible new invention. I am not your average Joe.
AI just facilitates this, on hyper-steroids. Will it sediment so it's of zero profit value? What happens when everything is enshittified? Will people know or care?
Who demands better than a passive existence?
The best gambling strategy is "DON'T"
The best AI strategy is to avoid it, or confine it to narrow verticals where it works (with human checking of results).
AI checker looks to be the hot job.
Just today: from pro-AI, anti-AI Hacker News
AI is the new blockchain
https://defragzone.substack.com/p/ai-is-the-new-blockchain
Blockchain, Metaverse (do ya remember metaverse?), AI
Keep the crap coming! Until people demand better.
As long as people pay for crap, crap they'll get. ...
I think of modern "culture" in terms of cat food.
Some genius saw that cats like chicken, beef and tuna.
So "LET"S MIX THEM ALL TOGETHER AND MAKE KITTY HAPPY EVERY DAY"
So, to we humans.
