Magnifying our Views on Creative AI

Using creative AI tools can seem like having access to a team of collaborators. It might help us brainstorm more ideas at the early stage of a creative process, iterate promising directions more quickly, and refine some of the details to complete a project. But even if it increases the speed at which we work and makes us feel more creative, there are tradeoffs when we grant AI the agency to generate and produce creative works for us. How do we consider the ethical dimensions of using these kinds of creative AI tools to avoid compromising our values? The Creative AI Magnifier was motivated by these kinds of concerns.

If you look for guidance to help you decide how to use these creative AI tools, you will inevitably find some of the essential readings and resources referenced in each of the 13 ethical topics described on this website. Amoung those, you may find frameworks (often called guidelines) that cities, companies, organizations, and other civic entities have published to explain how they intend to use AI tools. Few of these resources are geared toward creative communities or focus on how creative AI tools might affect artists, designers, musicians, and other creative communities and individuals. Their processes, practices, and futures are rapidly shifting because of these emerging tools, and their voices should be heard.

Being Shaped by Creative AI Tools
How do we come to terms with the ways we use these tools? Do we agree with how creative AI tools are changing how we develop our projects? Do they make us more imaginative and creative? Or do they reduce our skills and motivation? How do we reflect on how these might affect us in the future? We can point to some of the potential favorable changes in our creative practices:

• Enhanced Creativity: Unique combinations from AI can spur new directions for human creativity.
• More Time for Creativity: AI automation of tasks gives people time for higher-level creative work.
• Lower Barriers: AI tools can potentially be democratized to enable all creative communities access to high-quality production tools.
• Personalized Mentoring: AI tools provide instant feedback to develop skills.
• New Roles Emerge: Jobs related to curating, refining, and directing AI creations.
• Deeper Meaning: Curating AI outputs encourages focus on developing a personal vision and finding meaning.
• New Modalities: AI enables creatives to explore new mediums of expression.
• Refined Style: AI feedback helps creatives better understand and hone their own unique style.
  Inspiration: Exposure to AI creativity spurs new ideas.
• Reskilling: Creative individuals may learn new skills, like creative strategy, to complement AI.

And some of the potential adverse changes in our creative practices:

• Diminished Creativity: Relying heavily on AI can atrophy a person's own imagination and idea generation.
• Devalued Skills: Human creations are less valued with the proliferation of AI art.
• Disconnected: Less human teamwork and collaboration in the creative process.
• Comparison: Directly comparing one's work against perfect AI outputs could damage self-confidence and motivation
• Devaluation of the Process: Focus on quick AI outputs might undermine appreciation of struggle in the creative process.
• Limited Perspective: Exposure to AI art/writing shaped by data limitations could restrict creative perspectives.
• Disempowered: Creative individuals have less control.
• Poor Attribution: AI creations are disconnected from the humans from which the outputs are built, many of whom did not give permission and were not compensated.
• Loss of Meaning: Ease of AI content creation could reduce the special meaning of creative breakthroughs.

We should consider these potential benefits and drawbacks as we align our use of these AI tools with our personal values and goals as creative individuals.

Using the Creative AI Magnifier
The Creative AI Magnifier zooms in on some of the most pressing ethical topics that creative communities need to consider. It provides an overview of these topics in order to help facilitate conversations between individuals in various creative communities, whether that be schools, studios, companies, or civic organizations, raise our collective awareness about them, and help each of us develop an internal compass when it comes to using them.

Responding to each prompt is part of a reflective process that can deepen your awareness of these issues. The visualization that results from your responses will approximate your current perspective on each issue and can serve as a set of guidelines that mirror your point of view.