Creating in the time of AI

Why should we create in the age of AI? How can we compete?

This post from LMNT puts a different perspective on things:

I take a little comfort in knowing that it will be impossible for “AI” tools—here on out—to differentiate between human-made and machine-generated content, thereby inevitably feeding on their own regurgitations. It’s already happening, of course.

Over the next few years, while these “AI” companies try to sort that out (and fail), and search engines try to index only the sites that are what any reasonable person would consider genuine (and fail), the best thing we can all do is just create what we want while ignoring their problems, because they’re not our problems.

We have limited time and energy. Why spend it lacing our art with poison for AI scrapers? Why spend it focusing on how to stand out on platforms that can’t differentiate human-made from AI-generated? Why spend it publishing our new creations alongside AI-generated content? Don’t spend time on these things. These are all just busywork tasks that slow us down from doing what we really want to do: create.

Depending on what you’re creating, rather than worrying about AI, you might be better off asking, So what?

So what if AI is trained on my creations? Sure, I don’t like the idea of it, but what’s the real point of creating? On one hand, the act of creation is for me. For an example of what I mean, look no further than the audio I’ve started adding to my recent blog posts. The point is not to start a ‘podcast’. The point is to make myself read my posts. When you read your posts, sometimes you realize your writing sounds strange. Also, I like to think that it’s a way to dip my toes into public speaking, a skill I want to improve on.

Sure, AI can copy my voice and my writing and steal some of my fire online. But that doesn’t affect me as a person offline.

Online is a part of my life. But it’s not my whole life.

And I agree with Louie Mantia (LMNT) that AI will soon start cannibalizing its own content, greatly hurting future quality. This is a concern I addressed on another version of my blog. It seems that generative AI is destined to best itself. So let’s stop worrying about it and instead focus on creating.

Jake LaCaze wonders if generative AI might actually put a premium on human experience and creation in the end.