As a author, marketer and product creator, I discover myself working with AI every single day.
I take advantage of it for analysis, ideation, outlining, proofreading and extra. I can barely think about getting my work completed with out AI.
And but…
Does working with AI make me extra inventive or much less inventive?
I began working as a trainee copywriter at a London advert company in 1979. I used to be simply 4 years out of college.
I hadn’t gone to school, though I had a spot ready for me.
As a substitute, I labored in a quarry. I went to artwork faculty in London. I travelled. I spent a 12 months dwelling in a small village in central Turkey.
And after I went to my interview on the advert company, it was fairly random. I simply wanted a job.
And so they gave me one.
A 12 months or so later I requested the HR man why on earth he had employed me, contemplating I had zero {qualifications}.
I bear in mind to at the present time what he mentioned, “You appeared totally different.”
That doesn’t sound like a lot of a qualification. However again then, whenever you had been hiring for an advert company inventive division, you needed totally different.
My inventive companion was additionally totally different.
I used to be the copywriter, and Peter was the artwork director. We labored collectively each workday for a number of years.
Peter was totally different too. Fairly the character. He was additionally a superb 20 years older than me. We got here from very totally different backgrounds. He was obsessively tidy. I used to be messy. We had been chalk and cheese.
Peter was additionally an extremely gifted artwork director. He taught me an enormous quantity. And we did some actually good work collectively, typically beginning with a brainstorming session over a protracted lunch and a minimum of one bottle of wine.
A pair of imperfect and totally different individuals, bouncing random concepts round, and spilling somewhat wine on the tablecloth.
That’s how our inventive concepts had been born.
ChatGPT isn’t like Peter in any respect.
I miss these instances.
And as a lot as I worth working with ChatGPT, it’s not the identical.
Plus, everybody else is working with the very same instruments.
Not the identical in any respect.
Consequently, I believe there’s a hazard we’ll turn into used to a advertising world the place inventive output that’s strange and predictable is labeled as being “finest in school”.
The answer? By all means preserve working with instruments like ChatGPT. They’re superb. And writers who don’t use them are placing themselves at an enormous drawback.
However acknowledge that AI isn’t your finest inventive companion. AI isn’t messy sufficient, random sufficient, human sufficient.
As freelancers, perhaps we have to cease working alone.
I work alone from house. However over the previous few years I’ve made an effort to construct an off-the-cuff community of inventive colleagues I can attain out to after I wish to brainstorm some concepts.
Nothing formal. No cash modifications arms. We’re simply obtainable to one another to offer suggestions on first drafts, designs, concepts, and so forth.
If you will discover some fellow creatives domestically, a lot the higher. You may get collectively over espresso or lunch. If not, e-mail and Zoom can work.
Lengthy story brief… AI is superb and right here to remain, and we should always leverage it to the utmost extent attainable.
However I don’t assume AI is your finest inventive companion.
To attain your highest degree of creativity, it’s essential double down on being human, being totally different, and dealing with others.
