Find your art and do more of it.
Recently, I attended a short film contest and made two exciting but unsurprising observations.
- First, AI wrote the winning short film story entirely. The AI beat the humans.
- Second, when people discovered the truth, they were so unhappy that they changed the verdict. They declared the winning short film unworthy of winning.
Is it strange that people loved it when they thought a human made it? The moment they discovered AI wrote it, it wasn’t so special.
The mindset tells us much about what we value. We value the artist’s consciousness, creativity, expression, and the human behind the work. We value the message, the story, and the implicit narrative in every piece of art.
At a friend’s get-together, I announced my intention to write a science fiction involving creating a new planetary system. One of my friends asked me a few questions about the protagonists and high-level themes. Next thing you know, he used ChatGPT to spit out a mundane story. After all, so far, AI, in general, is a massive cut-and-paste ability. It hardly sees anything beyond what is already out there.
A human author guides every word, sentence, and page with conscious and effortful intention toward the creative, imagined, ideal outcome. How much more interesting a story is that than “the algorithm spit it out”?
We don’t value things because they are valuable but because we value them. Message and value are not things by themselves – message and value are in the people.
That is the difference between “art” and “output.”
The doctor emails me the bloodwork results. A business analytics company delivers tedious pricing comparisons. An industrial construction company installs a large boiler. Output is output. It’s cut-and-dry. It is what it is. And that’s all it is.
Art is more than a contractual commitment or minimum expectation. Humans imbue it with their feelings, qualities, negotiation skills, and humanity.
AI is increasingly doing more work, and the output quality is improving from the specifications perspective. In such an environment, entrepreneurs, leaders, and professionals who will win are the ones who create art and find unique ways to combine it with the output. Ask yourself:
- How can we combine art with the output to succeed in an environment where AI is increasingly doing more work?
- What are the potential impacts of the era of technological leaps on my industry, related industries, and professions?
Call it what you may think, another industrial revolution or era of technological leaps. Do two things: find your art and do more of it.I would love to hear about your experiences! Please share your stories at satish@dhaakar.com. Please forward this knowledge letter to those who could benefit from it. They can subscribe to it here or by clicking on the link below.
Thank you,
