What does the use of Generative AI do to our human creative expression? Part 1: the experiment

My expression about a place that is significant for me: a view from the sea on the Ligurian Coast

This article is kind of an experiment.

If you will entertain it, you may end up having a regenerative time.

You’ll need an open mind, creative tools like pencils, markers, paper, musical instruments and around 30 minutes of your time.

If you don’t have time right now, you may come back later, or you may skip to the observations at the end of the article and the thesis that I devised in Part 2. I would love to hear what you felt through the experiment, what observations you got when going through the activities. 

What I am not interested in, are opinions half baked from skimming through the article, without engaging with the experiment. I am very intentional in creating slower, reflective spaces and if you are not up to it, you can scroll to the next piece of content, no offence taken.

Now, let’s get started. There are 4 tasks for you and 2 moments of reflection:

Task 1 

My first question for you is to choose a place that is somehow significant for you. Take your time. It can be somewhere far away or very close in space or time - as long as you know it well enough. 

Task 2

Now, open your Generative AI of choice, it can also be a search engine, and ask in your own words to describe this place, express it, depict it, whatever feels appropriate for the place in question. Save the output for further reflections.

Task 3

Now put Generative AI or any other piece of technology away and grab your creative offline tools, whatever they are as long as they don’t engage a screen. 

Express what the place you have chosen is about for you. Feel free to use words, gestures, sounds, food, paper, pens, stickers, paint, your own body movements, musical instruments, anything that you find exciting. 

Spend at least 10 minutes on it, not more than 20 for now. 

If you feel like you are done before the end of the 10 minutes, try exploring further, deeper. 

Moment of reflection

Look at your creation! How is it different from the one generated with AI? And not just about the output, but how did the process make you feel? What are your observations? Please feel free to share a picture and your observations in the comments.

Task 4

Now the last and maybe the most difficult task.

Produce another creative expression and this time you’ll explore what the place you have chosen has signified for your people, for the community, the culture, the people that have inhabited, lived it. 

When you are not sure, access your intuition, imagine it, explore it. Do not resort to research at this point. 

Spend at least 10 minutes on it, not more than 20 for now. 

If you feel like you are done before the end of the 10 minutes, try exploring further, deeper. 

Moment of reflection

Look at this other creation! Was it difficult? What is the difference with the previous creation? And with the one from Generative AI? How did you feel through the experience and with the output? 

My observations 

Congratulations, the experiment is over! Now you can read my observations, but I would be happy to read yours too in the comments, or in whatever other formats you find appropriate.

Part 2 of this article will be published soon with a larger, more systemic perspective.

We did this experiment the first time at the UX for Change meetup in July in London. 

When this wonderful group of people came together in a room, there were some beautiful creations and powerful reflections, like:

• The personal expression of the place carries the stories of the relationship with the people and other beings like trees, water and animals - the joys, the sorrows, the longing, the memories, the complexity of any relationship 

• Working on the collective, cultural significance was somehow harder, like something people had to think on how to do and had to explore different directions

• The constraint of not using tech or AI felt frustrating at times for the “lack of skills” in representing the initial thought, but eventually forced the participants to find other creative forms and be even more effective. 

• In many cases participants changed medium for the different tasks, as the message required different media and was influenced by the medium chosen

What were your observations? How was it for you?

I came up with these exercises inspired by some general observations and some pieces of academic research that all point in the same direction: generative AI mediated creative practices are eroding fundamental skills of human expression, as much as capitalist and colonial systems have been eroding skills for collective creative expression.

I will tell you more in Part 2 of this Article. See you there.