Look, this might sound nuts but I think it’s true: I’m already part robot. I’m pretty sure the same can be said for you.
Enhancing our human powers
I first read about the far-out concept of man merging with machine back in 2005 when I was writing a dystopian novel about an elite, privileged class of humans who could live to age 200. As part of my research, I read Radical Evolution by Joel Garreau.
In these riveting pages, Garreau wrote not only would we have designer babies in our futures, but we might eventually have chips implanted in our brains to help us think better.
Though there is no surgery—yet!—to get an information transfer “port” in the back of our brains, we are definitely moving in that direction:
We have pacemakers to keep our hearts going.
We have deep brain stimulation devices to help epileptics.
And we have the Smart glasses, pioneered by Google Glass, to augment our vision and help us search the web hands-free. Though this ability is not yet inside our bodies, it’s certainly close!
More recently, I read The Singularity is Nearer: When We Merge with AI by Ray Kurzweil, who makes the case that becoming one with machines is a natural part of evolution. Kurzweil sees a day soon when nanobots will enter our bloodstreams and fix whatever ails us, so that we can live healthy lives for 100 or 200 years…or, well, forever.
Getting nanobots to do an inside job and repair all my ailments sounds great, but how much tech do I really want to let inside me?
How AI is improving my work
For the past month, I have worked to help several thought leaders write their authoritative nonfiction books, using AI to speed up the process. The AI serves as the world’s smartest assistant, helping me find choice passages from the clients’ previously published works, or evaluating what I’ve written against my clients’ stated goals for the book.
When it comes to the actual writing of text, AI is also a treasured partner. I will draft a paragraph and then ask, “Can you revise this in a way that will resonate even more with my target reader?”
Sometimes the AI can rephrase the text in a way that better accomplishes my goal. Most times, though, I accept the AI’s general advice but implement it in the way I see fit.
Why changing the creative process changes everything
So what does this have to do with merging with machines?
Oh, just about everything.
Partnering with AI is changing me as an artist, a human writer. It’s completely altering the way my brain operates durig the writing process—a process I’ve been doing more or less the same way for the last 30 years. This radical transformation isn’t just happening to writers.
Other artists are going through a similar evolution. In his compelling Ted Talk “The Problem with AI Generated Art,” professional designer and illustrator Steven Zapata explains how the act of drawing has given him so many gifts, such as discipline, perseverance, self-awareness and compassion. He says, “In the age of automated art, we might still have ‘art.’ We stand to lose everything there is to gain in the making.”
The price of evolution
The artistic process is fundamentally changing in every creative discipline. As a result, the creators are changing too. We are shedding our human skins.
So what is the price of the artist’s evolution? It is our fine-tuned sensitivity. When we rely on AI as a partner and we speed up the creative process, we remove the need to dig into the wells of our empathy and extra-sensory perception to produce a given work.
We may no longer be the canaries in the coal mine that humanity counts on to sound the alarm of impending doom.
Forget whether the published writing or the just-dried painting is better or worse with or without the help of AI. My point is that by changing my artistic process so quickly and dramatically, I am literally becoming part machine. The hardware is still outside my body, but probably not for long.
Shana Burg is an award-winning author. She recently penned “Poof! The Disappearance of a Writer in the Age of AI.” Through her agency Shana Burg Digital Marketing, Shana help thought leaders write outstanding books to scale their influence in 60 days. Interested? DM me on LinkedI.