Creativity is the last hope of our species: When “I’m not a robot” doesn't cut it

This piece was featured on Greenbook

A strange phenomenon has been activated in recent months. One that might not have occurred before we entered the AI age, but that’s becoming increasingly common. As I converse with my fellow humans I’m sporadically met with a peculiar feeling that I’m talking to an AI. Such are the cliches and truisms in the syntax I’m left wondering whether there’s even a thinking, feeling human in there at all.

We’ve been bombarded by a cacophony of threats since the sudden rise of gen AI, but this one is more insidious. It’s not about the sinister creep of deep fakes, phishing emails, or eerily humanistic bots that were set loose on us in the name of propaganda, entertainment or efficiency. This threat isn’t about technology at all. It’s about the indictment it makes on us humans. The fact that there is now a real possibility of being misidentified as an inorganic being (not even animal or vegetable) is quite frankly embarrassing. A human being mistaken for a robot may just become the next problem for humanity - more than what the robots can or might do to us.

“I’m not a robot!” I hear you cry. Oh yeah? Well, prove it. And you’ll need to do more than flaunt your traffic light recognition gifts to impress me this time. How about an original thought? Or a more poetic landing of your next sentence? I’m looking for responses that don’t feel formulaic, functional or overly familiar. Show me vulnerability, emotion, and authentic weirdness too. In essence, we’re going to start judging interactions with other humans, especially those mediated by technology, by their capacity for lateral thinking, deep feeling and the banishment of cliches. These are the foundations of creativity, but more of us will now need to manufacture this.

While I introduced this phenomenon as an embarrassment to our species, I also see it as a huge opportunity. Our descent into cliche began years ago. The automation of our communication function via email, text, and even in person (“Sup? Nothin', You? Nothin’”) has plagued us for generations. Before that office culture, hierarchies, cubicle life, eye-rolling awful acronyms, and business jargon reduced us to single-function job titles with little conscious thought or free will. We were already low-grade automata, albeit with fleshy exteriors. So this recent robot misidentification finally gives expression to a problem that was hiding in the shadows. Now that we can be so starkly confused for non-humans, we have a new impetus - even duty - to care about how we live among our fellow fleshy beings. It brings us face-to-face with the mundanity of our existence and offers an alternative.

And, ironically, AI might also be a contributor to the solution.

AI has been pointed at myriad solutions that provide efficiency and ease for humans. From dissecting complex legal texts to parsing huge data sources in hunting down new medical solutions. It is far less often deployed to upskill humans’ innate gifts, like creativity, which remains distinctly within the realm of the human. So not only should we flex this muscle to escape misappropriation, but we should harness AI to coach us to be better at it. The simple fact of having your humanity tested by a bot is one way I’d take up the fight. Sparring with a machine is already being done at creative organizations where writers or creatives start the thinking process with the ‘obvious; answers from Chat GPT. What if we were to implement this in more places? When challenged to prove your human status, perhaps we should get into a quick game with the robot interloper to sharpen our instincts and train our God-given creativity and imagination right back into us. If we don’t start doing this, it might not be long before the bots train themselves to do it for us.

Here are three ways we are using AI to upskill and re-equip humans to be human again:

1. Encourage play, reflection, and weirdness. In being odd, we jump out of the traps that AI falls into - which leads to cliche and boredom. Permission to play is the first step to unleashing creativity, but too often our work, tech and social structures are too unforgiving to provide the environment that nurtures this. Ai can poke, prod and cajole us back into our uninhibited selves.
2. Sharpen and remind us of our powers of intuition and instinct for others. Not everything has a clear and rational explanation. Nor is everything recorded objectively in the data. Sometimes humans just know or feel something that communicates to us about another human. Without words to define or categorize it or without confidence to call it out it will get discarded. But it is these unsaid, intimated or mumbled shreds that often contain the best insights. Our instincts for others served us for millennia and we need to continue to use this gift now. 
3. Train, provoke and challenge. We’ve become a society of mouse-ish workers that avoid conflict and even debate for fear of breaking group harmony. But we all know that creativity thrives in conflict, challenge and the breaking of norms. AI provides a risk-free on-ramp to a culture of debate as we may practice our healthy sparring with machines and be reminded of the huge bounty behind the bandy.