AI doesn’t sign NDAs

Are we mourning creativity or control?

Everything starts with a point of view. What is life without a point of view?

In art and in life; in reality and in fiction, a point of view is the building block. It is the initial spark. The foundation. The masterpiece. The crown we reveal. The fuel.

But the engine; it is the medium we choose.

In today’s new era, the medium has become artificial intelligence; whether in finance, healthcare, arts, or education.

The moment AI entered our creative fields, we started running in many directions just like a criminal trying to wipe his fingerprints from the crime scene.

Now let’s get to the point. With the arrival of AI, are we mourning creativity or control?

We have always loved, admired, and quoted the speeches of the greatest people. We have lived by their words. Whether a CEO, a rebel, an actress, a public figure. The words we admired and lived by, whether in speeches, memoirs, or books, were - in many cases - written by a third party. The ghost writer. Yet, we never questioned or bothered to care. Now replace the ghost writers with AI and watch out how the world will rebel against originality.

How often have we fallen -willingly- to the comfort of believing that a fashion designer is the solitary genius behind a big fashion brand? We all know that the designer is not the only dreamer at the atelier. Behind every fashion house, there is a huge team of creatives, artisans, dreamers, interns who work day and night to bring a masterpiece to the spotlight. So behind every visionary is a village, yet only one name is celebrated. Now let’s replace that village with AI generated sketches; and watch out how the whole brand’s soul will be questioned. So it has always been a fight between credit and creativity. We never questioned the credibility of the brand or the originality of the designer no matter what creative control happens behind the scene. Yet today with AI, we ask; “What about the artist?” The hypocrisy.

You know what I find endlessly amusing? The reverence we have for names. For credit. For spotlight. For recognition.

The irony is that we have always accepted the invisible hands behind the work we bring to the public, and we have always hired a secret creative to help bring our vision to life. And this is divine. Collaboration is divine.

Image courtesy of neurosciencenews.com

The method of a third party creative joining the creative work is not new. What is new is the demand for transparency. We have always had our masks on. But as of today, we don’t have the luxury to control the masks.

In fact, we have never created anything alone. We created from who or what came before us. From borrowed wisdom or archives. We created with the help of friends, family, and mentors. We created with silent collaborators. We created with behind the scenes creatives. And many times we borrowed phrases from here and there to make bold statements.

So why hide now? Maybe because before we were protected. Not by integrity, but by contracts and NDAs.

Imagine if we were to sign NDAs with AI and take full ownership of our work, would we still experience the same fear? Because this fear isn’t about losing creativity. It is about losing control over our creative persona. We are not afraid that AI is going to write a better article or song, we are not afraid the AI is going to generate designer sketches. We are afraid that we will no longer be able to pretend that we have done this alone. We are scared of the unmasking; of being exposed.

Our problem with AI is very psychological. In psychology they refer to this as imposter syndrome; that we are not as talented and as intelligent as the image we project to the public; and that one day they will find out. Carl Jung once wrote: “The persona is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others think one is.” In this new era, AI threatens the persona. We can no longer present creativity as a solitary act. Today the ego is being challenged by a collaborator that doesn’t obey the persona and who can never be silenced by an NDA. And today - more than ever - we shall ask ourselves, do we want to create so that our work is admired and delivered to the right people, or do we want to create so that the identity behind it gets validated?

While we like to think that we are witnessing a technological shift, we are in fact witnessing a psychological shift. Maybe we never wanted to belong to ourselves. Maybe we always wanted to belong to our glory.

Let me be clear, AI will not end creativity. But it will definitely expose how fragile and performative it has always been. But this isn’t the battle. Not yet.

The real war is not only about coding and copyright. It is about courage. The courage to show up. The courage to be vulnerable. The courage to be wrong. And the courage to admit; this isn’t my masterpiece. And if we fail to teach the next generation this courage; and we just pass to them our fears, our masks, and our NDA’s; they will never learn how to dance with the devil of their times. Or worse; with their own devil.