11 Comments
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Michael Woudenberg's avatar

I always find this conversation starts because most humans think we are uniquely and individually created vs the reality of mimicry, inspiration, and derivative creativity.

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Andrew Smith's avatar

You're saying this is more common among believers in the supernatural and/or the devoutly religious? I can see that.

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Michael Woudenberg's avatar

Honestly not a theistic connection at all but it is heavily religious in how it goes. Mostly artists who don't understand humanity.

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LL's avatar

"We humans are kind of a big deal, at least to ourselves."

That totally amused me.

Yes, some do believe they are a big deal. Others... see our place within it all.

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Andrew Smith's avatar

I love to hold space in my mind for both views. Yes, we are minuscule in a vast cosmos that reaches further than any of us can truly imagine, and we don't even know how far it truly goes - just that it goes so damn far, we can't really grasp it!

At the same time, the universe has created a means by which it can observe itself. That means is us. We really are cool!

(yes yes, there positively could be vast numbers of other civilizations out there, but we're still the only one we know about - still counts as cool!)

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LL's avatar

❤️❤️❤️

especially... "the universe has created a means by which it can observe itself"

(hadn't thought of it that way before :)

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Andrew Smith's avatar

I certainly can't take credit for the observation, but like you, I am kind of blown away by the very idea.

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Daniel Nest's avatar

Who are you calling a creatine, dude?

On a serious note, I think a big part of this discussion arises because we've learned to associate creativity with some level of effort, time, suffering, and experience. So conceding that AI can be "creative" without expending any effort or having our unique human experience feels like a lot to some people.

Perhaps the better approach is to leave room for different degrees and types of creativity, not necessarily at odds with each other, but complementary?

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Andrew Smith's avatar

For sure, this is always the answer. The question is wrong, really: it's not whether or not something or someone can be creative, but it's to what degree and how that matter.

And I also feel like I'm saying the same thing over and over again, but trying a slightly different approach here. I know you've seen dozens of these types of pieces, but this subject also keeps on coming up in real life.

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Andrew Sniderman 🕷️'s avatar

A fool with a tool, is still a fool. AI is a tool. There was a study with AI diagnosing disease. They ran it A/B style with one group using AI solo, another AI+doc. AI solo did better, because the docs thought they were smarter and didn’t trust AI insights.

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Andrew Smith's avatar

I agree completely - it matters a great deal who's driving the AI.

A really experienced AI user (a "prompt engineer" type, or just someone who generates images and researches all the time) with some medical knowledge would be the sweet spot, I'd think. I've noticed that having a little expertise of my own makes navigating with AI and cutting through the BS much faster, but also: you don't really have to be a total subject matter expert to be a good copilot.

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