Generative AI learns its trade from outcomes. Each statistical model is trained on as many examples as can be scraped from as many sources as possible. The system takes what human beings produce – by word, image or sound – and fine-tunes itself to reproduce them. Then with imaginative human prompting, along with a splash of randomness, it can produce variations which appear to be new creations. It’s smart-copier. Ask for a photo of dog on Mars and it generates a new one from all those canines, planets and sci-fi illustrations it’s analysed.
Do we do the same as human beings? Well, people certainly learn by viewing, hearing or reading what others have created. But we don’t only learn from finished articles. There are many processes which feed into our creativity. An apprentice does not only look at what is made by the craftsman she’s working for. She also learns about the tools, and practises using them. She learns about materials, styles and practical physics. She learns about the requirements of those placing an order – the equivalent of the AI’s input prompt. She also learns about the context of the request because that helps to understand the order better – in other words, she learns about people. And that, of course, includes learning about her mentor and herself. All these, and others things besides, shape her creativity.
So is AI doing its work on the cheap, by – for the most part – simply smart-copying the work of humans? Or should we say that other creative processes are embedded within its training data (our work) and so, in a sense, the AI models them too? I don’t think so because, at the end of the day, the computer still only has the single skill of transforming our outcomes into its own. It doesn’t mature in the way a craftsman does through his life. It only ‘matures’ as it sees more stuff to set its parameters by.
To which we can add a thought about the delivery point. In human society, the shared humanity between craftsman and customer are part of our creativity. The appreciation we may feel as a consumer of a well-crafted item is not only for the piece of work itself but for how it was made, for the person who made it and for how they treated us. Elements of the relationship feed into our appreciation of what’s been made. Why are we like this? Because we were made in the image of God and He is like this.
In the creation account of Genesis 1, man is made on day 6 and so never sees how God formed everything. Adam’s eyes open only to see the outcome of creation, not the process. Yet, God then insists on carefully telling a little of each day which led to this moment. For Adam to understand God’s creativity, he needs not only to see what God made but hear how he made it, in a way that he can relate to. He needs that because he’s made in the image of the triune God. Generative AI cannot offer that.
Photo by Dominik Scythe on Unsplash
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Introduction to this series of posts
Cover photo by Denley Photography on Unsplash
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