Is creativity something human? It seems less and less like it. There are AIs that create works of art, write poems or film scripts. So what is creativity? And how creative can technology be?
Simulating Creativity with a Computer
We see that technology is becoming increasingly advanced. People have been saying for decades that human labor is going to be unnecessary, completely taken over by machines.
Although there were always a number of types of jobs, especially creative professions, that were considered safe from robot takeover. At least, that’s what we always thought. But the remarkable thing about the story is: there are increasing signals from technology that this is not the case.
For example, AI has already started writing film scripts, which have also been developed by directors. And the Midjourney algorithm even won an art prize last year with an illustration. This is a program that creates paintings or illustrations based on a number of terms.
The moment AI wins such a prize, you start wondering: what is creativity? To what extent is it a human characteristic? And to what extent do we create things entirely ourselves? Are they just compilations of what we have seen before? And is that something that can be simulated just as well by a computer algorithm? And if our art can be simulated, what remains of the human that cannot be simulated? Even an AI like ChatGTP, which can tell you everything about humans and our world, makes you wonder about this.
What Makes Humans Different
What makes us as humans unique? I think especially the fact that humans have feelings. I wonder if a robot could ever fall in love.
When an algorithm is produced, it is created with a purpose. This purpose is also what it is optimized for. The goal of an algorithm is, for example, to play chess as well as possible, and everything the robot does is then directed towards that goal. With humans, it’s very different. We can explore things without working towards a goal. And if we get tasks, we can just as quickly get distracted and start working on something else. That’s what makes humans special.
Yet all the new developments in the field of AI keep making us question over and over again: what makes a human a human?