Creativity Is a Process

In a world where AI is reshaping creativity and generative AI tools are becoming increasingly integrated into artistic endeavors, the boundaries between human and machine creativity are blurring. This rapid proliferation of technologies challenges our traditional notions of originality and authorship. Are we ready to rethink the social contract between humans and technology?

In this post, I'd like to explore the concept of the "black box" that permeates the current discussion on the interplay between creativity, technology, and the law. Specifically, I'll discuss David Guetta’s experiment with generative AI, which offers a glimpse into the future of music and beyond. My goal is to spark a conversation about the role of technology in the creative process. Let's dive in!

/ 1 / David Guetta: “Let Me Introduce You to … Emin-AI-Em”

In February 2023, one of the most prolific dance music producers in the world, French DJ, David Guetta, posted on his personal Instagram account a short clip from one of his latest concerts.

In the clip, you can hear what appears to be Eminem’s voice saying, “This is the future rave sound; I’m getting off the underground,” accompanied by energetic dance music. Future Rave, or FR, is a genre of electronic music associated with Guetta and Danish DJ, Morten Breum.

Guetta explained that this was something he “made as a joke,” but it worked “so good that I could not believe it.”

He described how he had discovered several generative AI websites that could be used to “create” lyrics and voices. One of them helped Guetta generate lyrics in the style of any artist, so he typed the prompt, “Write a verse in the style of Eminem about the Future Rave.”

He then used another generative AI website that recreated Eminem’s voice. Finally, he combined the words in Eminem’s voice with some music. The Instagram clip ends with Guetta talking about the effect of his “creation” on the audience: “People went nuts.”?

Several commentators observed that this was not the first time Guetta paid tribute to Eminem?– in 2019, he played Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” at the MDL Beast Festival. But on that occasion, and in contrast to his later usage, he played Eminem’s original music (and voice).

However, soon after making the initial Instagram post, Guetta gave an interview where he explained that he would not release the mix publicly because of his respect for Eminem and the ambiguous legal framework concerning copyright entitlements.

In another interview to BBC, he stated:

“I’m sure the future of music is in AI. For sure. There’s no doubt. But as a tool. … Nothing is going to replace taste. What defines an artist is, you have a certain taste, you have a certain type of emotion you want to express, and you're going to use all the modern instruments to do that.”

The Guetta example constitutes a typical creative use case of generative AI in a contemporary context. Such generative AI increasingly finds applications across every domain of the creative industries: From composing music, drafting text, writing software code and other technical documents rendering a room with a particular design or filled with a specific style of furniture – generative AI permeates every area of creative work and defines digital culture, more generally.?

/ 2 / Opening the Black Box ?

Surprisingly, many people still believe that the gen-AI tools are a "black box" - it's not clear how they work, and that humans have very little, if any control, of how the black box of AI operates.

I'd like to challenge this prevailing approach and demystify what happens during the creative process when people collaborate with AI tools. My aim is to suggest that a “black box” approach that minimizes human involvement in situations where people use gen-AI toos is inadequate.

To illustrate our point, we will rely on the example of David Guetta and describe the process that characterizes Guetta’s usage of generative AI. I'd like to suggest that his creative process is typical and a representative use case of generative AI.

This approach should lead to a more precise clarification of the distinctiveness of creation in a world of generative AI and – crucially – a better understanding of the role of technology in the creative creation.

Humans Collaborating with Gen-Ai Tools

A premise of the discussion is that this process of conception, prompting, generation, refining, and deployment characterizes the creative use of generative AI. There are several aspects of this creative process that we would emphasize: ? ? ?

1. Conception. Guetta started with an idea and knew what he wanted – Eminem-style lyrics and voices accompanying energetic four-to-the-floor FR – although he did not know, specifically, what he would get from the AI.? He had a vision when he started, but he was not working with or from a fixed plan or script – i.e., he didn’t know, precisely, where he was going. Yet, this is nothing new – all artists, our painter for example, presumably start the creative process with a similar vision or conception, however, minimal of what it is they are trying to achieve in a particular instantiation of the creative process, even if they don’t always have a fixed conception of what it is they want to create. In a creative context, intentions are important but malleable, incomplete and contingent upon context, especially previous works by dominant figures in the genre and tradition, as well as related genres and traditions.
2. Prompting. Crucially, generative AI is not – for the moment, at least – acting independently, in the sense that it requires external instruction, i.e., an input of some kind (in this case, “Write a verse in the style of Eminem about the Future Rave).” This instruction was a self-conscious and deliberative choice on the part of a human creator aiming to materialise their concept.
3. Generation. The act of generation, in itself, is obviously not new – the painter paints, after all – and generating something would seem to be a necessary condition of all creative activity. Moreover, the reliance on technology is not new either. A painter depends on simpler technology – brushes, paints, and paper – but some technology and by extension the producers of that technology are implicated in all creative processes and content generation. It is important to note that generation happens as a response to the prompting of the human author, David Guetta, looking to manifest a specific vision.
4. Refining. Once he received the generated content, Guetta edited the received content and integrated it with some music. In this respect, refining is not simply the editing of a human-created text/picture (i.e., part of a process generation) but a distinctive stage of working with something given back to the creator by the third-party generative AI. In this respect, it does differ from our artist. Refining, in the sense used here, includes a broad spectrum of activities ranging from a crude copy-pasting to a more sophisticated bundle of processes, including curation, collation, compilation, and assemblage. The final, approved result of refining is what we would call output. Think of it as the created piece of music in the Guetta case.
5. Deployment. When, where, and how the output material is used is subject to a high degree of external (i.e., human) influence. The generative AI, for the moment, cannot determine when, where, and how its creations will be used.

/ 3 / Opening the Black Box

It's time to move forward from misleading conceptions: creativity is a process, not an act. And even when authors incorporate gen-AI tools, the creative process involves multiple stages, in each of which there is clear human involvement and control:

I hope this helps to shift the debate away from the "black box" metaphor, which oversimplifies the complexities at play. The current position of the U.S. Copyright Office, which categorically deems most works created with generative AI tools as ineligible for copyright, strikes me as deeply problematic.

But what do you think?

Generative AI invites us to rethink foundational concepts: What does it mean to be creative? What does it mean to be original? Is it time to revise copyright law to reflect these new realities? And what should the evolving relationship between humans and technology look like?

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