If You Want To Change Your Life...
And Who Doesn't?
Why A.I. Isn’t Going To Make Art.
That’s the kind of hope scrolling click bait title
That gets me every time.
In this case it turned out to be
An actually insightful piece in The New Yorker.
Essentially, it says, A.I. can’t make art -
Or even entertainment - if you distinguish those two -
Because making art is making decisions.
Persistent decisions.
A gazillion decisions.
And that to direct AI to make anything even half way decent
Would require so many instructions
You may as well make it yourself.
Whether or not this is exactly true
And whether it will be true forever -
(We already see AI coming for voice over in plausible ways
Though that AI VO on reels is nails on a chalkboard to me)
The idea that
What we are actually doing when we create
Is deciding.
Is a hugely important take away.
Take away the paraphernalia
The difference in media
The bells and whistles
When you get to the core of creativity
What we are actually doing when we create
Is deciding.
I mean I’ve been operating for some time
With the knowledge that making decisions
Is a key part of creativity.
I do a bootcamp called
Pick Your Next Project
(I just decided to postpone that till January stay tuned for the date)
And my book So You Need To Decide was - obviously -
Completely about decision making.
But even so I hadn’t thought about decision making
As the essential activity.
That making decisions is like the whole thing.
Even if you say art is about connections.
Or beauty.
Or articulating the unknowable.
Whatever your definition of art is
You decided that.
And then you make a lifetime of decisions
Expressing that belief.
And because of this
One of the many things
That make our creative lives so challenging right now
Is that before we even begin our work day
We are all in decision overload.
From like the supermarket, the news feed, socials, weather etc etc.
When I was doing a little research
For So You Need To Decide
I learned the average adult makes 35,000 decisions a day.
I don’t know what makes an adult ‘average’ in that way.
And I don’t know whether they count
Things like moving your toothbrush
From one side of your mouth to the other.
But whatever - that’s a lot of decisions.
And then you arrive at your work.
You open your word doc, sit down at the piano, walk on stage etc
And it’s more decisions.
All decisions.
It can feel like too much.
A few possible things that can help.
’Down balloting’ your work.
We decide about what project to do.
And then
We down ballot.
All those smaller statewide level decisions.
Then the little/local decisions.
The ones that we are starting to understand
Can be so critical to outcomes.
Sometimes we follow our intuition
And it might not feel like decisions.
But it is.
It’s super fast fluid decision making.
Like race car level.
Give yourself credit for that.
We use all sorts of words for decision making in arts.
Inspiration.
Editing.
Choices.
Palette.
Structure.
Practice.
Timing.
Etc etc.
Understand it’s all decision making.
And mostly.
As much as decision overwhelm can make our work decisions hard
If we’re conscious about it
Our work decisions can help with decision overwhelm.
Because we are not ‘average’.
We are practiced decision makers
Our work
Can help the rest of our lives.
We viscerally experience that making a different decision
About how to structure your show
Can clarify the story.
That how to organize your studio
Changes your paintings.
That learning a new music program changes your songs.
We know decisions
Change things.
So it may not help in the produce aisle
But if you admit you want to change your life
And realize
It is really only decision making
That will change your life
And suddenly realize the gazillion art decisions
You made this week, year, decade, life
Give you a kind of super power!
How do you want to change your work?
How do you want to change you life?
How do you want to change you?
These are questions A.I. cannot answer.
But the other A.I?.
Artistic Intelligence.
These big questions are exactly what it has been evolved to help with.
Infinitely Yours,
Beth
PS If you are looking for help with the decision making part of your creativity it’s a big part of my creativity coaching work - go ahead a schedule a free discovery call - to discover! - if we are a good fit.