Despite the constant growth of AI and other related technologies, progress is not driven merely by lines of code or sophisticated algorithms, but rather by ideas. Thus, as AI technologies continue to shape the world, the significance of creative and innovative ideas has never been more pronounced.
So, what’s the reason behind this phenomenon? Let’s first define what “ideas” mean in the current context.
Ideas in the current age
Generally speaking, an idea is a mental construct or representation of a concept, thought, or impressions, often arising from creativity, imagination, or thought processes.
While “ideas” can take on various forms and can be conveyed through just as many platforms, it has a defining characteristic – novelty.
Now, while many ideas are completely revolutionary in their novelty, this is not an utmost necessity, as “novelty” can also stem from a different arrangement, understanding, or application of pre-existing concepts, either for practical or expressive purposes.
Take art for example. One example of a revolutionary idea in art is the concept of Cubism, which emerged in the early 20th century. Cubism, pioneered by artists such as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, represented a radical departure from traditional artistic techniques. In Cubism, objects are analyzed, broken up, and reassembled in an abstracted form, shattering the perspective that art has to be as faithful to the object it represents like in Realism.
However, an idea can be much smaller, much less ground-breaking, yet influential all the same. This is often found in story-telling, where the same troupes, such as “The Chosen One” and the “Wise Mentor”, can be used in multiple stories, yet never gets old because each story provides its own voice, and tackles the troupe in subtle yet different ways.
Now that we have established the general definition of an idea, let’s move on to its use in the current age – where technology has been on the forefront of innovation.
The use of ideas in the AI age
Providing the groundworks for innovation
While AI is an extremely extensive technology, its main function boils down to data analysis. As in, the AI can only effectively function if it has pre-existing data to base things on, and can be heavily influenced by the content of its data.
Of course, humans are also susceptible to the ideas and influences of others, but the human mind differs in that it doesn’t necessarily rely on pre-existing knowledge, and are capable of coming up with never-seen-before arrangements, translation, philosophies, and concepts.
This difference is extremely transparent in the realm of art. In particular, an AI art tool can create new pieces, but these are always based on previous existing works, and adopt already existing styles. You can rarely tell apart the work of one AI tool to another, before unlike human artists who take the time to develop their own niche style, AI art adheres to the source materials it has “learned from”.
This also applies to the broader realm of innovation: AI can solve problems, but it needs a human who has previously solved the problem, and for the problem to first be identified by a human. Human ideas are what keep innovation alive, providing the groundwork for AI to thrive on.
Addressing ethical and human issues:
As aforementioned, while AI technologies have immense capabilities and can be used to solve various issues, they can be influenced by the content of pre-existing data, which can include heavy prejudice, misinformation, and biases.
In addition, AI is unable to comprehend exclusive human elements, such as ethics, social responsibility, morals, culture, and emotions. Thus, it may generate results that lack ethical considerations, fail to address biases, diverge from social responsibilities, or even fail to align with human values.
In the world of today, where information is readily available and people are more conscious than ever about cultural nuances, ethics, and societal values, it is therefore of utmost importance that human ideas take the lead.
Only humans can actually understand multi-faceted problems with social elements, and so only human ideas can help to better society while avoiding possible ethical offenses.
Copyright controversies:
Finally, copyright law is deeply rooted in recognizing and protecting the creative contributions of individuals. While AI systems can generate content, they lack the intrinsic creativity, intent, and originality associated with human authorship. As such, acknowledging human ideas reinforces the foundational principles of copyright.
Secondly, human involvement in AI-generated works often extends beyond the algorithmic phase. Humans play pivotal roles in designing, training, and fine-tuning AI models. The choices made during these stages can significantly impact the output, influencing the creative direction and style of AI-generated content.
In fact, several original works can be identified in AI generated works, making it impossible for businesses and similar entities to claim the AI work’s authorship and protect it from inappropriate use.
Therefore, in order to actually utilize AI works, it is necessary for human ideas to still be at the forefront.
So, how to express ideas and stand out in the AI age?
Overall, with human ideas being a core pillar of the ever-evolving world, it is more necessary than ever to know how to effectively convey ideas.
In fact, sketching and storyboarding are two important techniques that help to convey ideas in design and art, as they help artists and designers to somewhat visualize their ideas in basic forms.
In order to translate the layouts, sizing, and combinations of elements, so that other people can understand, sketching things out and making storyboards have always been effective.
So, how to make efficient and powerful sketches and storyboards that get ideas across? Let’s find out in the next series about Sketch and Storyboard.
