Drawing the Line: On GenAI, Creativity, and Not Handing Over the Keys
We're wandering deeper-and-deeper into a forest of digital reflections.
Where, every day it gets harder-and-harder to tell real from fake.
Recently, I was writing a Christmas post when a quote kept playing back in my head:
We're all just sparks in a stormy sky, burning out bright before we die.
It was perfect. I mean, I wanted to use the quote because it worked. It wouldâve melted like butter on hot bread within the post itself.
But, and it's a big BUT, the quote came from an AI-generated musician. Breaking Rust had captivated the Spotify world before word got out, and knowing it wasn't human-attributable... something about that didnât sit right for me.
Iâve found, itâs usually better for the soul not to hit the twinkling âEasyâ button.
That feeling of inner conflict though, it sparked a deeper debate within me:
Where is the line for GenAI in creativity?
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What Wakes Us Up
Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. - Thomas Merton
Creation is proof that we were here. That we were paying attention.
Weâre all struck by different things because weâre built with different inputs.
Different variables thrown into one, big, beautiful, messy, equation.
- Itâs Chopra in the morning.
- Itâs flipping on the lights and pausing for a quiet, unearned âWow.â
- Itâs watching the barista with the intensity of someone who knows this drink is doing most of todayâs emotional heavy-lifting.
- Itâs Dickens at night.
Different strains. Same impulse.
We recognize it in others, because we carry it ourselves. When someone goes all-in on their craft, it wakes something up in us.
It reminds us whatâs possible.
Sometimes, consuming something great makes you want to create something great.
It invokes the William Wallace in all of us. It makes you brave.
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When Life Instructs That You to Begin
Someday is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. - Timothy Ferriss
Sometimes, consuming something great makes you want to leave a mark. To leave proof that YOU were here.
This happened to me recently, after being a part of the ultimate creative process.
My daughter was born.
And her arrival came with a very clear, very physical message. A cosmic Powerslap:
Wake up! If youâre gonna do the damn thing, do it now. Life ainât stopping.
I got back to writing.
For the first time in a long time, it felt right.
I had something in me that I had to get out of me, and the belief that someone, somewhere might get some use out of it had strengthened to the point of conviction.
The Muse got a hold ⌠and I, a bit older and wiser, had learned to get out of the way.
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Committing to What Only You Can Do
The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers. - Sydney J. Harris
Watching so many people trade their own thinking for prompting has had the opposite effect on me. It sent me back to the one thing no model can replicate: my own, imperfect, human perspective.
I might use GenAI for something like strengthening a transition between sections but brainstorming, rough drafts, quote attributions, full edits .. theyâre all the realm of Me.
GenAI is a tool in my creative process, not a substitute for that process.
My thinking, my soul, my work ⌠they're all Me.
To be truly creative, to be a true problem solver, is to be tapped into the soul of the world. To be intentional about our work and its meaning.
To GenAI it away, is to suck the purpose out of life and throw in the towel on what makes us uniquely human.
For me, itâs writing. For others, it may be paint on canvas. Food on a plate. Elegant code. Graceful deal-making. Tactful speech. Movement as medicine. Persistence in problem-solving.
The options are limitless, because when weâre tapped in, weâre limitless.
I believe everyone has a unique voice. And when weâre aligned with it, it doesnât stay contained.
It pours out of us. Sometimes like a pin prick. Sometimes like an artery cut open.
We spill ourselves into the world. We stain it with our life force.
What makes you want to bleed it out?
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Where I Draw The Line
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. - F. Scott Fitzgerald
The line for GenAI in creativity lives somewhere between convenience and authenticity.
Between the shortcut and the long way home.
A full purist may reject every tool, every assist, and grind it all out alone in the dark. And that may be noble, but it ainât the Way. Thatâd be like refusing to use a hammer because our Paleo ancestors shaped stones with their hands.
A full progressive, by contrast, may prompt their way through every decision and creative output. Leaving it all up to the model. That ainât the Way either. Thatâd risk waking up one day only to realize we'd outsourced the only part that mattered. The part that was ours.
The Truth sits between these extremes. In the tension.
GenAI is a chisel, not a sculptor. An amplifier, not a voice.
A tool to be used as a part of the process, not a replacement for the process itself.
I keep coming back to that Breaking Rust quote.
For the purposes of the post I was working on, it fit. It worked. But it wasn't honest to me and ultimately, I elected to leave it out.
An AI-generated quote is a creation, sure. But it didn't wrestle and bleed for it.
The creative process, for me, isn't just about the end result.
It's about wrestling with the void. Not knowing if your thread will come through the other end.
It's the mysticism of pulling something out of thin air that wasn't there before.
That's the part I donât ever want to hand over.
Thatâs where I draw the line.
Howâbout you?