Creativity, AI and awkward questions

Some of you will have seen how at least one author has been caught accidentally leaving AI prompts within the finished text of their book, and also how a suggested summer reading list in the Chicago Sun-Times contained AI hallucinations for books that don’t exist. There was, rightly, an outcry against this laziness, and a sense of being cheated (also, does no-one do any editing anymore?). But beyond these obvious, egregious examples, I find the question of artistic integrity (and related, academic integrity) interesting in general, and how the use of AI makes us ask difficult questions.

There is a lot of puritanism around the use of AI in any form of the creative arts, which I have a lot of sympathy for. This is not a pro or anti AI post, but rather, about the way we have to reframe existing questions around authenticity. It is very easy to take a hard-line stance and declare that no AI should be used. For instance, when you submit work to an agent on QueryTracker, you are asked to declare if any of the content has been created used AI. An immediate problem here is what do we mean by AI, and what do we mean by using AI in its creation? Grammar and spell checkers now like to label themselves as AI powered, but I think most people would find that usage acceptable. But then it gets a bit more problematic. What about using AI to help create a synopsis of your own work? Or using AI to offer suggestions to expand a scene, which the author the writes? Then there are more obvious examples, for example inserting whole chunks of AI produced text into a novel, to essentially getting AI to write a whole novel in the style of someone else.

These are not new questions however as they relate to artistic integrity. Editors can play a significant part in the final output and style of an author. For example, Raymond Carver’s famous economic style is largely the result of editorial work by Gordon Lish. Many record producers are as responsible, if not more, for the albums we love than the artists themselves. A producer like Trevor Horn often creates more of the finished music and sound. Then there are painters who use studios of artists to create works, attributed solely to the main artist. This was common practice, and artists like Rembrandt were famous for their use of a studio approach, to the point that it is difficult to attribute his works solely to him. The authorship of Damien Hirst works is famously, erm, not straightforward. And so on.

The point is that we still recognise these artists as genuinely creative people, sometimes using the genius label. The myth of the lone genius is often, just that, a myth we like to perpetrate in society because of its romantic connotations.

I guess the question then, is it different if Rembrandt uses a studio of people to help produce his content than if an author uses AI to help in their process? I think the answer is yes. And no. Yes, it is different because they are working with people, overseeing the process, and essentially remaining the artistic vision. They have established and created their own artistic merit that these methods augment. The answer is no, it’s not different, because you could argue the same with some uses of AI. If an artist has established an effective overall vision and style, then arguably (the arguably is doing a lot of heavy lifting here), it’s just using the tools of the day. The labour of the apprentices in Rembrandt’s studio were the tools he had available.

I guess it comes down to whether you feel it affects the artwork that you experience. If an author has used AI and you can tell there are clunky parts in the text, and it ruins the experience of reading, then it’s bad. But if they have used it at the margins and you remain unaware, then maybe it doesn’t matter.

There is a bigger, and more significant set of questions around the ethics, sustainability and long term effects of this behaviour, but that’s for other posts. What is interesting I find, is that the AI question makes me reflect on what I want from art. Sometimes it’s just entertainment, but it’s also about connecting with someone else who has engaged in the artistic process. Recently we visited the Rijksmuseum and saw the great collection of paintings there. It was packed. Why is that, when we can see all the Vermeers, Rembrandts and Van Goghs we like in books or online. You can argue that it is partly a “I was there” mentality and also that the you can see brushwork and detail in the real thing that you can’t in a reproduction. That is all true, but I also feel that there is a sense of connecting and celebrating human creativity. For a few hours you are surrounded by the best that people could produce and that’s still inspiring.

Someone reminded me the other day that my chapter on AI in 25 Years of Ed Tech ends with this quote: “Perhaps the greatest contribution of AI will be to make us realize how important people truly are in the education system.” I think the chapter is pretty much wrong about AI and too dismissive, but it is saved by that last sentence (Football metaphor – much like Spurs terrible season being redeemed by the Europa final). It’s true beyond education also, and particularly in the area of artistic endeavour.

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