105. Your Creativity vs. ChatGPT

“All this to say, exercise your creativity. Find ways to put disparate things that don't normally go together, put them together and see what happens. Ask yourself: "What if...?" Such a powerful question. Every day find ways to learn something new, do something new, go someplace new.”


In “Your Creativity vs. ChatGPT” How To Write the Future podcast host Beth Barany shares how to invite AI tools into our creativity and how they are not to replace us but instead here to help us. Beth also shares how being creative is essential for being a resilient human being. 


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• SHOW PRODUCTION BY Beth Barany
• SHOW CO-PRODUCTION + NOTES by Kerry-Ann McDade

c. 2024 BETH BARANY

https://bethbarany.com/

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Transcript

105 - Your Creativity vs. ChatGPT

Hey, everyone. Welcome to how to write the future podcast. I'm your host, Beth Barany. I am a writing teacher, creativity coach and science fiction and fantasy novelist. This podcast is about helping writers, creative writers and specifically science fiction and fantasy writers, but also anyone who cares about the future, this podcast is here to support you in creating positive, optimistic futures through your writing and also for you as the writer and as a human being. 

What I really care about is creativity. And so my podcast is supporting one of my highest missions, which is to explore creativity, and to explore All the ways in which we can enhance our creative skills, which leads us right into today's episode. 

Exercise Our Creativity 

Today, I want to talk about the ever increasing need to really be exercising our creativity in the age of chat GPT and all the generative AI tools that are out and many more that are coming. 

Where do I want to go with this? 

Creativity is a muscle. But it's also something I think we are all inherently born with. 

So creativity is inherent to all humans, and also to other creatures that we share our planet with not to all of them, but to many of them. I understand crows are very creative. Also our cousins in the monkey ape families. Some of them are incredibly creative. 

Creativity Is Inherent And It's A Skill 

So it's inherent and it's a skill. It's a skill that you can become good at, get better at. And the more you exercise it and the more you practice it. I believe, the better you can become. 

In business, they called this skillset lateral thinking. Lateral means sideways. 

So instead of plowing forward, step-by-step- what's the logical next step? Creativity is about looking sideways, looking outside the norm. 

Somebody's defined creativity as combining two things that don't normally go together and putting them together and creating something new. 

ChatGPT is an Algorithm 

Now ChatGPT can do that, can't it? And. It is just an algorithm. And all the AI tools out there, they are just algorithms, equations. Very sophisticated. They pull from lots and lots of data. And how they got that data isn't necessarily ethical. That's something to be explored. That's something that I'm not talking about today. I'm actually not really going to talk a whole lot about these large language models, ChatGPT and their ilk other than to say that, I really do have a stance here, that If you treat these tools, as a look, they can generate ideas for me, and then take them at face value, then you're actually not exercising your human judgment, discernment and creativity. 

What these tools are really great at. I'll just speak from the writer side is they can evaluate our material or they can give us some ideas that we wouldn't have already thought of. 

But you as the human being, now, it's your job to evaluate discern, edit. It's just raw material. 

The Future Of AI And The Creative Fields 

I was inspired to do this episode today because I went to a really great workshop recently on AI and its influence in filmmaking because I am moving into filmmaking. Which is very exciting. 

I want to give credit to the man who gave the talk 

AIs influence on the entertainment industry and how to prepare for it." And it is delivered through the nonprofit From The Heart Productions. 

And the teacher for the talk is Jonathan Smith, who is an indie film tech adviser for From The Heart Productions. From The Heart productions is a nonprofit that helps filmmakers. with education grants and, they also act as a fiscal sponsor for films. They're not my fiscal sponsor.

His predictions were that AI is going to affect many areas of filmmaking, affect people's jobs, affect what people are going to be expected to do. It's going to affect so many aspects. But it's not going to take away everyone's job. There are still jobs that people need to do, no matter the tools. 

His point was look at what I think is coming. Be prepared. Where do you fit? And to be informed. Make some intelligent decisions. One thing that he mentioned is of the important jobs that he thinks are still gonna stay is writer. We need human writers. Go ahead and ask ChatGPT to design a story. It's not going to be that great. It might give you some ideas. It might be raw material. You might take some of it and integrate it. Take some of the ideas, take some of the language. 

His point was eventually these AI tools are going to be so easy to use and so accessible that everyone is going to be making media. Everyone will be able to make film. Everyone will be able to not just consume media, but make media. 

And I thought,probably not everyone. With a push of a button, a few buttons and a few simple commands, you can make your own video. Okay. But will it be any good? Will it be something people want to watch? Will it have heart? Will it actually speak to a community? Will it speak to a need? 

This is where human ingenuity, human creativity and our ability to discern and to edit is going to come into play. But we don't get those skills just effortlessly. I should say, as small children, we're very creative. 

Our education system, at least here in the United States does not nurture it, hasn't historically nurtured creative skills. 

Children Are Inherently Creative 

When I was a kid, me and my siblings playing made up games all the time, doing tons of art projects, supported by our parents. My mom was actually really great at creating environments where we could color. And pain too. We learned sewing and knitting and crochet, boys and girls, I remember making gingerbread houses,Yeah. And all the incredible made up games outdoors. And hide and seek where I would pretend to be a spy or detective. Our imaginations are so active as children. 

And the education system and the parental support and guidance and our peer group in the greater culture, they can either continue to support that, foster it, nurture it, guide it, give it opportunities. 

So you have a lots of opportunities to continue to grow as a creative, be supported, be praised or that can be squashed. That could be judged. You could be told, oh, that's a stupid thing. Stop doing that. You can't make any money with that. 

Creativity is Essential 

Actually our creativity is essential- it is essential for being a resilient human being. It is essential for the coming increase in all these AI tools, these generative AI tools. And in all the challenges we face being creative helps us be resilient. Being creative allows us to come up with a solution when everything feels hopeless,when our back is against the wall or when we're down to our last dollar. Being creative is actually what got us here in human civilization. 

Exercise Your Creativity

All this to say, exercise your creativity. Find ways to put disparate things that don't normally go together, put them together and see what happens. Ask yourself: "What if...?"

Such a powerful question. Every day find ways to learn something new, do something new, go someplace new.

Our Brain Needs To New Things To See New Things 

It's so interesting. Our brain, I was just hearing this recently in a wonderful talk, our brain tells us what to see. We don't see the world as it is. We see the world through our filter and our filter in our brain, the way our brain has been wired is from all of our past experience. 

So if you want to change how you see things, you need to give yourself new experiences. You need to give yourself new experiences-- new food, new music, new stories, new people, new places-- will help you have new thoughts. 

So that's my spiel today on creativity. Basically bottom lining it is generative AI Chat GPT and all of that is coming, and it's here, and it is going to affect our lives as creative people. Maybe it already has for you. And the more we exercise our creativity, the better we will be at being able to take advantage of those tools. These tools are not there to replace us. These tools are there to help us -operative word "tools." 

They are tools. They are not the answer. They are not God, they're not teachers. They are not right. They're not more believable than human beings, even though they sound that way. It's just a tool. 

You Have Agency 

So take charge of your life. You have agency. I was just reading a commencement speech recently where the speaker talked about agency. Let me credit the guy. The title of this guy's commencement speech is Agency and it's Scott Galloway. 

Any Questions? 

All right, everyone. That's it for this week on creativity and how we need to exercise it in this age of ChatGPT. 

If you have any comments on this topic and how you think what are the essential skills we need in this age and as the technologies develop, let me know, I would love to hear them. And if you have any questions, let me know about that too. And your idea could help me create a new episode. That's it for this week, everyone. 

Write long and prosper.