AI detractors have warned that the emerging wave of generative technology, such as ChatGPT, Bard and Dall-E 2, could usher in an era of declining human creativity and innovation.
Today, it’s true that AI-generated art and literature can hardly be called inspiring, moving, thought-provoking or even very entertaining – the hallmarks of great human-created art. Mostly it is formulaic, bland and, somewhat inevitably, robotic.
But we’re still very much in the early days. One school of thought holds that as technology evolves and better learns to “understand” the creative process, it will become capable of creating increasingly sophisticated works. Can we be sure that we will never see AI artwork as awe-inspiring as that of Michelangelo or poetry as moving as Wordsworth? And if it does, where does that leave us as humans? Will there be any need (or motivation) for us to express ourselves creatively?