Will Artificial Intelligence kill creativity?

Listening to the news recently, one of Microsoft’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) researchers was extolling the virtues of the technology, and how it could help humans. Many of the examples mentioned – such as using machine learning to analyse millions of medical cases to alert doctors to symptoms they might have missed and describing the world around them to the blind, all have a clear benefit to society, as does the ability to understand conversations and use the knowledge to improve customer experience.

However, the interview then turned to how AI is being incorporated into Microsoft Office, where it will be used to help ‘improve’ the documents that we write, and the presentations that we create. And that’s where I began to get worried. Everyone has a personal style when it comes to writing, and while some mistakes are obvious (such as spelling and punctuation), ‘correcting’ what we write so that it fits with what is seen as good by an algorithm worries me a lot. I do a lot of writing for clients and each one has its own, individual style, dependent on who it is aimed at, the message I’m trying to get across and the medium being used. How can a machine understand this? I’ve already switched off the grammar checker on Word as it always seems to recommend using shorter words and shorter sentences, even if they don’t give the impact I’m looking for.

It also made me think of the impact on overall creativity. Through the ages writers have developed their own unique styles, often going against the current orthodoxy to stand out from the crowd. Imagine e.e. cummings poems with all the words capitalised, or Marcel Proust sentences shortened so that they don’t stretch over multiple pages. Or the fact that computers don’t seem to yet understand puns and double entendres, removing the humour from documents.

In short, the risk is that we end up with bland, homogeneous copy produced by everyone. It may be understandable by a 10 year old, and meet all SEO requirements but it doesn’t have real impact, and the good doesn’t stand out from the average. To my mind that doesn’t help anyone – amidst all the worries about AI and robots taking over the world, I think we need to start with its effect on creativity. Perhaps it is time to go back to pen and paper?

Photo via Max Pixel http://maxpixel.freegreatpicture.com/Artificial-Intelligence-Programming-Robot-Ai-Ki-2167835