As the wife a saxophonist, I have learned that, "democratizing creativity" means redistributing more of what's left of the wealth to the wealthy. Long before AI chatbots arrived, residuals (pay for musicians) were gutted in the US in deals struck with music platforms (I'm talking about you, Spotify), while outside the US, their artistic contributions remain compensated. Today, AI enables reconstituted copy-cat theft at scale. (Just name your favorite artists and ask DALL-e to create an image.) I doubt laws can contain it because this easily reaches far beyond US borders making it difficult to stop.
Your insights have been particularly helpful in understanding important aspects of this GenAI revolution.
I realised recently that the kind of shift here is not so much copying 'creations' but 'copying' ('cloning') *creators*. Our intellectual property rights were not designed for what GenAI does. Even if you work is not copied, your creativity (your style, insights, etc.) is (in a 'cheap' way). This is indeed somewhat the same what happened at the start of the Industrial Revolution. The big difference is that weaving (pottery etc.) machines were independent inventions (the machines might have been based on understanding the principles of weaving etc., but they were not 'trained' on artisanal weavers etc. actual output. By using your creations, GenAI is 'sort-of-cloning the (collective) creator(s)' without consent. This, while innovative, is also a form of theft, as none of these creators gave permission to be 'sort-of-cloned' that way.
What we might need is an extension of 'intellectual *property* rights' to 'intellectuality rights' (bypassing the potential solution to state that you 'own yourself' — but maybe that is even an effective shortcut.
Exactly... creating is a journey... becoming a reciever, conduit and communicator... of human experience.... and then... maybe.
So democratising can't do what it purports unless it puts you through decades of grief, joy, delusion, loneliness, thwarted ambition and oversensitive awkward introspection at the press of a button.
There was a recent study that suggested that using artificial intelligence boost creativity but decreases originality. But originality is the very soul of creativity and art.
Maybe we’ve been conflating “democratize” with “capitalize” the entire time. Have we even democratized democracy? We could start there, as it certainly feels like it’s more capitalized and working for corps/PACs than people. So perhaps that’s what this phrase is revealing, and where things are going with AI.
I feel this when looking at companies like Figma that turn on AI training by default using customer data. For enterprise and organization plans, AI content training is set to off by default. For starter and professional plans, AI content training is on by default. Meaning they opt in the smaller individual based plans to be exploited and opt-out the larger organizations who can pay for that level of protection.
Which way is the capital and knowledge flowing again? Oh yeah from the individual to the corporation.
Also there seems to be confusion with “being creative” and jumping ahead to “having an artifact to exploit or publish” - the genuine surprise people admit to “I didn’t know I was a creative!” Is because they are typing “generate a clone of Apple weather app” and conflating that with creativity. We gotta fix our words.
Couldn't agree more. I am a content writer whose livelihood depends on writing and SEO. For the past one and half year, I have experienced the slumped. Although, I was happy that a productive tool is here to help but turns out is destroyed the creativity completely. Another strange thing that has happened AI is making every creative form a suspicious one. No matter what I do, I am always accused of using AI.
Excellent read! Thank you for sharing. I would also like to add that what these companies neglect to mention when they "democratize" things is the costs that it entails. Not only in terms of resources, but also the mental cost of people having to moderate the content so that these models are less toxic and offensive.
I still remember reading about OpenAI paying Kenyan workers less than 2 dollars an hour for moderation. People had to read and see harmful, explicit and toxic content in order to remove it from the training set of the model
The real danger to creativity is for children. If they grow up relying on "AI" systems, they will never develop their creativity, nor will they need to learn a craft. Even worse, they may grow up accustomed to the cheap imitations produced by "AI" and never even learn there is something more instinctive and inspired. I am also glad to see no one here attacking you for your views on AI. Some people get quite defensive.
Digital divide propelled with other historical and intersectional factors is increasing the disparity in the society immensely, yet the Silicon Valley is delusional without having solutions to the fundamental issues. "Democratise" is just a flashy word for them!
Brilliant writing as always - i've been eating up your work since finishing the Blood In The Machine book. Waiting with baited breath to find out (and read more on) the second AI buzzword that has stoked your anger !
The application of AI in academic writing does indeed provide convenience for researchers, but it is more like an auxiliary tool for future writing rather than the mainstream. AI can handle data and provide an initial writing framework, but in terms of in-depth analysis and creative thinking, the unique value of human authors remains irreplaceable. In the future, collaboration between AI and human authors may become a mainstream trend, jointly promoting the development of academic writing.
I think it's a dangerous line to walk, and has so far led to some weird and unchecked overproduction, but you're right, it seems a balance can be struck and the general tech certainly has promising and useful utilities (assuming models can be ethically constructed etc etc)
What they mean is "commoditize". It will make creativity a commodity, or rather, since commercial creativity is already somewhat commodified, it will further commoditize and totally devalue it.
"Democratize" is simply Silicon Valley's misspelling of "displace".
yesssssss
As the wife a saxophonist, I have learned that, "democratizing creativity" means redistributing more of what's left of the wealth to the wealthy. Long before AI chatbots arrived, residuals (pay for musicians) were gutted in the US in deals struck with music platforms (I'm talking about you, Spotify), while outside the US, their artistic contributions remain compensated. Today, AI enables reconstituted copy-cat theft at scale. (Just name your favorite artists and ask DALL-e to create an image.) I doubt laws can contain it because this easily reaches far beyond US borders making it difficult to stop.
Your insights have been particularly helpful in understanding important aspects of this GenAI revolution.
I realised recently that the kind of shift here is not so much copying 'creations' but 'copying' ('cloning') *creators*. Our intellectual property rights were not designed for what GenAI does. Even if you work is not copied, your creativity (your style, insights, etc.) is (in a 'cheap' way). This is indeed somewhat the same what happened at the start of the Industrial Revolution. The big difference is that weaving (pottery etc.) machines were independent inventions (the machines might have been based on understanding the principles of weaving etc., but they were not 'trained' on artisanal weavers etc. actual output. By using your creations, GenAI is 'sort-of-cloning the (collective) creator(s)' without consent. This, while innovative, is also a form of theft, as none of these creators gave permission to be 'sort-of-cloned' that way.
What we might need is an extension of 'intellectual *property* rights' to 'intellectuality rights' (bypassing the potential solution to state that you 'own yourself' — but maybe that is even an effective shortcut.
Thank you!! And yes I think that's a pretty apt way to put it — and for sure, we are officially in the age of needing new policy ideas here....
Exactly... creating is a journey... becoming a reciever, conduit and communicator... of human experience.... and then... maybe.
So democratising can't do what it purports unless it puts you through decades of grief, joy, delusion, loneliness, thwarted ambition and oversensitive awkward introspection at the press of a button.
There was a recent study that suggested that using artificial intelligence boost creativity but decreases originality. But originality is the very soul of creativity and art.
agreed
Maybe we’ve been conflating “democratize” with “capitalize” the entire time. Have we even democratized democracy? We could start there, as it certainly feels like it’s more capitalized and working for corps/PACs than people. So perhaps that’s what this phrase is revealing, and where things are going with AI.
I feel this when looking at companies like Figma that turn on AI training by default using customer data. For enterprise and organization plans, AI content training is set to off by default. For starter and professional plans, AI content training is on by default. Meaning they opt in the smaller individual based plans to be exploited and opt-out the larger organizations who can pay for that level of protection.
Which way is the capital and knowledge flowing again? Oh yeah from the individual to the corporation.
Also there seems to be confusion with “being creative” and jumping ahead to “having an artifact to exploit or publish” - the genuine surprise people admit to “I didn’t know I was a creative!” Is because they are typing “generate a clone of Apple weather app” and conflating that with creativity. We gotta fix our words.
Couldn't agree more. I am a content writer whose livelihood depends on writing and SEO. For the past one and half year, I have experienced the slumped. Although, I was happy that a productive tool is here to help but turns out is destroyed the creativity completely. Another strange thing that has happened AI is making every creative form a suspicious one. No matter what I do, I am always accused of using AI.
Really sorry to hear this is happening to you.
Excellent read! Thank you for sharing. I would also like to add that what these companies neglect to mention when they "democratize" things is the costs that it entails. Not only in terms of resources, but also the mental cost of people having to moderate the content so that these models are less toxic and offensive.
I still remember reading about OpenAI paying Kenyan workers less than 2 dollars an hour for moderation. People had to read and see harmful, explicit and toxic content in order to remove it from the training set of the model
https://time.com/6247678/openai-chatgpt-kenya-workers/
Thanks! And yup. Should check back in on those invisible labor chains — even more companies needing such labor now.
The real danger to creativity is for children. If they grow up relying on "AI" systems, they will never develop their creativity, nor will they need to learn a craft. Even worse, they may grow up accustomed to the cheap imitations produced by "AI" and never even learn there is something more instinctive and inspired. I am also glad to see no one here attacking you for your views on AI. Some people get quite defensive.
Where is our Adorno and his updated “Art in the Age of Mechanical Production”
That was Benjamin but yes! Art in the Age of Endless AI Reproduction....
Ha! Oops
Digital divide propelled with other historical and intersectional factors is increasing the disparity in the society immensely, yet the Silicon Valley is delusional without having solutions to the fundamental issues. "Democratise" is just a flashy word for them!
indeed
Brilliant writing as always - i've been eating up your work since finishing the Blood In The Machine book. Waiting with baited breath to find out (and read more on) the second AI buzzword that has stoked your anger !
ha well thank you! it's less a buzzword than an oft-repeated mantra from AI/automation advocates... will get there soon, promise
The application of AI in academic writing does indeed provide convenience for researchers, but it is more like an auxiliary tool for future writing rather than the mainstream. AI can handle data and provide an initial writing framework, but in terms of in-depth analysis and creative thinking, the unique value of human authors remains irreplaceable. In the future, collaboration between AI and human authors may become a mainstream trend, jointly promoting the development of academic writing.
I think it's a dangerous line to walk, and has so far led to some weird and unchecked overproduction, but you're right, it seems a balance can be struck and the general tech certainly has promising and useful utilities (assuming models can be ethically constructed etc etc)
“We want to democratize X” = “We want to become the gatekeepers for X”
Another excellent article. You take what we all feel, and put it in the most eloquent way. Thank you.
What they mean is "commoditize". It will make creativity a commodity, or rather, since commercial creativity is already somewhat commodified, it will further commoditize and totally devalue it.