It’s hard not to wonder about the implications of generative AI as a theologian, philosopher and observer of culture. While the conversation for its future in education are in full swing, my best guess for that is a complete overhaul of the school system or a reversion to pre-digital methods. It’s hard to say which one would serve society better, but I’m sure some academic researchers completely disconnected from reality will decide its fate. I mean, why change the status quo?
Where my real concern lies in the imagination. Up until now, our tools have enabled us to be more productive and accelerate our thinking, but we’ve never hit a point where the thinking can be done for us. An argument can be made the Internet has already made this happen given the copy/paste that happens and echo chambers of social media, in which I would agree. However, that has more to do with laziness and a real low bar for critical thinking. Not imagination.
The worry is the thought we’ve hit the apex of creativity. Perhaps my slant is toward art, but it feels that we are in a flat line. It’s often said all stories we have are just takes on the same few themes (and Shakespeare supposedly did them best) and all our technological innovations are pale re-inventions of what already works (e.g. music streaming services are just radio channels with more DJs available).
Are there exceptions?
Sure—every jump in ingenuity starts as the exception.
Where the exception differs is in the way it captures the imagination of the populace. Take, for instance, movies. It’s pretty clear we are running dry on ideas as we’re getting bombarded with remakes, sequels or yet another Marvel Cinematic release. Of course there’s an economic incentive for this, but to take chances on new ideas requires one to capture the imagination of others.
It will be increasingly difficult to do that when AI models spit out what has been done before in a very predictable pattern.
At the risk of sounding like some Luddite alaramist proclaiming the end of humanity over the next technological development, as I’m not against the tools that make our cognitive processes easier, it’s whether access to these tools should be given without a need for them in the first place. We already have editors burned out from endless AI submissions for stories (to the point they’ve closed new submissions for the foreseeable future), and readers of indie books getting pissed at AI generated stories (it’s so obvious that it hurts).
What happens when this bleeds into music? Or movies?
My hope is a renaissance of imagination, similar to what happened in the 60s/70s with music. Artists in their imperfect forms experimenting with sound, voice and heart in their lyrics. It was a generation that still inspires today and a spirit that is desperately needed now because, if I can be so bold, our world has jumped the shark.