Everything everywhere all at once
Disruptive times ahead
It’s only been a few months since ChatGPT launched and already it seems like AI is ubiquitous and disrupting everything everywhere all at once.
ChatGPT, Stable Diffusion, Midjourney and the likes, are enabling new use cases and tools almost daily. Microsoft, Google (and soon Apple) seem to be locked in a Battlestar Galactica sized war for AI headlines, whilst the likes of Salesforce, Adobe and other platforms are busy announcing their AI moves too.
Keeping up with AI news is a full time job in itself!
So, where does this leave us today, as we stand at the precipice of the great AI enabled unknown (and this is before quantum computing power has been introduced into the mix, the next era of exponential potential!)?
The curse of knowledge
“The more you know the less you know” is a well documented theory (Dunning–Kruger) and certainly seems and feels to be the case with generative AI.
With the explosion of “new” (new AI capabilities, new AI use cases, new AI announcements, new AI driven ideas and businesses), the curse of knowledge seems truer than ever, as it’s easier to feel paralysed by the choices facing us as brands and companies.
At a simplistic level, the infinite possibilities being created and enabled by AI now, can be easy to explain / summarise (see diagram), but increasingly difficult to embrace and execute (or even to decide what to do).
Diagram: structuring the unstructured
Is co-creativity the new battleground?
Co-creation has long been at the core of many human centred design methods. In an AI powered world there are already many examples of humans + AI co-creating code, art, writings, songs and more.
Human creativity is not static, and people will continue to develop new ideas and methods as they interact with AI and other emerging technologies. This ongoing collaboration and exchange of ideas between humans and AI could lead to unprecedented advancements in various creative domains. The future of AI and creativity will likely involve a dynamic interplay between human ingenuity and the evolving capabilities of AI systems.
ChatGPT4 from a discussion on the future of creativity
So, in a world of infinite possibilities, is co-creativity the new battleground? Humans and AI working together to create and define the art of the possible. There are already examples where humans are acting as extensions to AI led concepts like this guy who is working for a ChatGPT CEO.
In the same way an artist stands before an empty canvas with nothing but a brush and palette, we too stand in front of untold possibilities for the things we create with generative AI (I’m just not sure whether humans are the artists and AI is the brush and palette … or visa versa!).
Either way, instead of fearing the unknown, it’s time to let Creativity lead the process and in doing so we will be sure to discover things we never even imagined possible yesterday.
