Never mind content creation: How to leverage AI for maximum creativity

How to get beyond the internet's latest "shiny object" obsession and understand how to really use AI for creative problem solving

During the last six months that ChatGPT has been in the wild, I’ve listened to a variety of fanboys and critics of it, each proclaiming what it means to the future of creativity.?

It seems like everyone is writing about it - but their advice is overwhelmingly focused on how to use it to create many types of content with blinding speed.?

But there's precious little advice on how to use it to spur creative thinking and problem solving. A recent Google search turned up hardly anything about AI + creative problem solving. Everything was skewed toward super-fast content creation.

I’ve also experimented with ChatGPT and other AI tools?to learn their strengths and weaknesses. And I’ve come to a fundamental conclusion:

AI will not replace our human creativity and creative problem solving skills.

Quite the opposite:

Human creativity is even more important than ever today. Here’s why:

Creative leaps often come from random environmental stimuli, conversations with others and unique, hard-to-replicate conditions that AI can’t duplicate or imitate.

Because most people will be lazy and rely on AI output, their ideas will start to look the same. Your human creativity will help you to stand out with ideas that are much more valuable and insightful.

AI will soon cause an unprecedented flood of new content on the web. As a result, your ideas will have to fight through a tsunami of AI-generated “noise” to be noticed. Making sure your messages stand out will require greater creativity and a deep understanding of your audience’s challenges, needs and aspirations that no AI engine can equal.

AI is not an “easy button” for original ideas. It simply remixes and summarizes what is already on the web. It can’t make leaps of logic. It can’t have an a-ha moment. It can’t generate new insights or think outside the box. It will do exactly what your prompt asks for - no more, no less. Where true, original thoughts and ideas are required, AI is not up to the task - yet.

Along with creativity, critical thinking skills will become even more important, to evaluate the output AI provides you with. In most cases, you’ll need to verify its accuracy, add nuance to it and craft stories that can pump up its tone, which often reads like a Wikipedia listing.

What are realistic creative roles for AI?

While AI can’t replace human creativity yet, it CAN serve as a powerful companion. For example, you can:

• Use it to research how others solved similar problems in other industries, which you may be able to adapt to your needs.
• Ask it to provide new perspectives for looking at a challenge - points of view or hypotheses you may not have considered.
• Ask it to validate the uniqueness of your ideas (but be sure to ask it to cite the sources of any similar ideas it finds)
• Use it to filter, group and prioritize large bodies of data and research to find new patterns and connections hiding within it

Ultimately, as creative powerhouse Adobe points out, AI can actually free up more time and energy that creatives can use to focus on “invention, imagination and ideation.”

Before we know it, AI algorithms may advance to the point where their power equals for exceeds human creativity. But the technology is not there yet.

Meanwhile, you have an excellent opportunity to double down on your creative skills to ensure that you provide exceptional value to the people you serve – an employer, a client, prospective customers and others.

That’s your best bet to ensure that your job won’t be replaced by AI.

I also strongly recommend that you learn as much as you can about AI – its strengths, weaknesses and the best models and techniques for helping you produce higher quality work.

Remember, during times of rapid change, those who understand and know how to leverage new technologies are able to extract the greatest value from them. If you can figure out how do so and help others, you can generate tremendous value.