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The advent of new technologies has always brought about awe and concern in the minds of those affected by it. The scaling up of research toward developing prudent and efficient AI has led to an increased prevalence of AI-enabled tools and widgets that are now easily accessible to the common public, including students at school. Considering these apparent realities, it comes as no surprise that people across the board are concerned about the rising popularity of AI writing and art. With these expressions being some of the most popular as well as important creative pursuits humans undertake, AI’s automation of these processes raises questions about its effects on human creativity and the overall process of creative expression.
Enhanced information processing has enabled AI to generate both artwork and written content that seem increasingly original by the day. This has sparked concern among creators and academicians, given its far-reaching consequences on writing and art. But how exactly will AI tools such as Midjourney, DALL-E and ChatGPT impact human creativity? While this remains to be seen, there are certain real-time effects of these tools that are already becoming apparent, along with speculative yet informed postulations on the matter. The below sections explore the same, alongside assessing the eventual impact these tools will have on academic and artistic endeavors.
The Importance of Human Creativity in the Age of AI Tools
Human creativity has been the driving force of the species’ progress.
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Creativity has been an innate human phenomenon that has allowed individuals to come up with original ideas and solutions to attain specific and defined ends. The output of creativity is often something novel and presents an opportunity for the result to have unique and intrinsic value. Human creativity has had a major role to play in just about every discipline and sphere of life since time immemorial. While people often associate creativity with the artistic aspects of human activity, it has been just as quintessential even in disciplines such as science and mathematics. Numerous studies and theories have tried to explain and better understand the creative process in humans, while also trying to attribute different aspects of human existence to creativity or the lack thereof.
Researchers and scientists have found that the home, social, and academic environments have a considerable influence over human creativity, making it a phenomenon deeply influenced by extrinsic motivators. With the increasing prevalence of AI writing generators and art platforms, the learning environment of students is sure to witness change. Creativity in the traditional sense also arises from different sets of processes and learning curves where the individual explores the object of learning and the process itself. It is also coupled with a rich blend of experimentation and resulting course corrections that are capable of shaping both the result and future creative undertakings. However, the rising outsourcing of creative processes to AI might be an important disruptor to watch out for, given that curiosity is driving the younger population toward AI writing and AI art generators.
AI “Creativity” or Automation of Quintessential Learning?
Artificial intelligence, despite its remarkable results, does not process information in the conventional sense.
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The latter half of 2022 saw an uptick in the availability of AI tools and platforms centered around writing and art. While chatbots such as ChatGPT took teachers by storm, AI art generators such as Midjourney began facing flak from the art community. Several images of AI-generated artwork and writing were shared widely on social media platforms, much to the surprise of people across the world. While people still conceptualize the implications of these tools, it is no surprise that many feel increasingly concerned about the process of creativity and AI automating these core activities that have set humanity apart from the rest of the species for millennia. The primary fears surrounding AI creativity are similar to those often found in response to reports of automation—AI making skills and technical excellence redundant. However, while these fears are legitimate and warrant further exploration, it must also be noted that generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Midjourney still require considerable amounts of human supervision and input for functioning effectively.
Despite concerns of AI art and writing taking away the creative spark from students in specific, these AI tools emulate and mimic existing works credited to human creators. AI, in its current stage, despite having an improved understanding of both language and creativity, does not entirely fathom these concepts in a “human” sense. Its reliance on existing content and splicing together works and influences from pre-existing, human-generated content. This makes today’s generative AI only use statistical patterns and incidences of techniques alongside word usage to generate content. ChatGPT is used to generate written content such as essays and papers due to its ability to process information in the form of language and generate outputs based on associations. The technique applies to both natural language processing and more complex seeming protocols such as art generators. AI such as ChatGPT does not have the common sense understanding of the content it generates in response to a query like a human would. This indicates that considerable human input would still be required to operate and generate relevant responses, and that AI such as ChatGPT lack innate creativity in the way it might be expressed in human beings. This lack of understanding could also be a reason for the appearance of inaccurate information and the prevalence of AI bias. While concerns surrounding the impact of AI on education and creativity are still legitimate, it might be a little too early for AI to replace human originality and creativity. However, demands to regulate both AI art generation and AI writing are still no doubt valid and come from a place of genuine concern. The current AI scenario leaves sufficient room for human creativity to continue blooming—so long as generative AI and its effects on education and student learning are closely monitored.
What the Future Holds
Generative AI still requires large amounts of human input and reference to come up with content.
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With continued explorations into AI tech by more firms, governments, and scientists, AI, and its capabilities are bound to grow. Since AI still remains rather mechanical in its approach to human concepts, it would still be early to take a call on whether or not AI tools such as ChatGPT will replace the writing process and creative ideation, regardless of the tangible fears it has stoked. As AI will also continue making its way into education, educators and creatives will have to keep a close watch on student use of these technologies, alongside coming up with creative ways to keep them engaged in organic techniques. Despite claims of keeping creativity alive with AI help, only time will tell whether or not AI is capable of either promoting or inhibiting student creativity.