A Life of Experience

How to Live In the Time of AI

Consumers vs Producers

Consumerism. Even the word itself feels sluggish to me. It brings with it thoughts of fast food, binge-watching, little legs scurrying on capitalistic hamster wheels and conveyor belts of marginally better products replacing their previous versions at ever-increasing costs. By contrast, I hold producers in high esteem. I also am one. Yes, we’re only one paragraph into this and I’m already patting myself on the back. Legacies rest on things we leave behind. To create something lasting — there’s beauty in that. Some of us are compelled (or cursed) to create.

The A’s Have I’s

Creative people are, by definition, producers. If you count yourself among them, you’ll no doubt be pondering at best and terrified at worst that AI’s democratisation of creative capability is going to put you out of business, or make you less special. I don’t believe it will, but let’s follow that hypothetical. If making a piece of art or music, or creating a video or movie, or writing poetry, are suddenly commonplace acts that are easily done at a high level with AI, what do we do then?

The first option is that we carry on as normal. Continue creating. Sure, now any person could easily make something of the same or higher quality than you by typing some commands on their keyboard, but what you create is still yours. It’s an authentic expression of something real from within. I have no particular objection to this line of thinking.

The second option is to abandon creative pursuits and become a consumer. Yes, that’s right, a 180 degree shift. Consumption doesn’t have to be a negative thing. Life, in large part, is to be devoured after all. Forget about spending large swathes of time slaving away on some artistic work, and live.

Some of you might be thinking, quite rightly, that this is a false dichotomy. Why should creation and experience be at odds with each other? Well, they aren’t. In fact, they are perfect complements to one another. Experiences inform and inspire the things we make. I’d like to draw attention to a certain mindset — the possessors of which do feel this dichotomy in a more pronounced way.

Everything Must Have a Function

Any experience is a good story to tell or write. Any conversation is an opportunity to gain or make use of psychological insight. Any book must be actionable — whether that’s the intention of it or not. Sometimes I lie in bed wondering what's in the second half of all the books I've abandoned since I stopped at every practical piece of information to make use of it. Any moment not spent trying to create feels, to a greater or lesser degree, wasted. Everything must have a use. That is how I think. I can’t say that I’d recommend such an approach to life, but it’s how I’m wired.

If I had 1,000 lives to live, I’d spend 999 of them just experiencing life. But, if I only have one, I have to make things. You can see how the rise of AI would make me question my current approach.

A Life of Living

“Have you ever sailed across an ocean... on a sailboat, surrounded by sea with no land in sight, without even the possibility of sighting land for days to come? To stand at the helm of your destiny. I want that, one more time. I want to be in the Piazza del Campo in Siena. To feel the surge as 10 racehorses go thundering by. I want another meal in Paris, at L'Ambroisie, at the Place des Vosges. I want another bottle of wine. And then another. I want the warmth of a woman and a cool set of sheets. One more night of jazz at the Vanguard. I want to stand on the summits and smoke Cubans and feel the sun on my face for as long as I can. Walk on the Wall again. Climb the Tower. Ride the River. Stare at the Frescos. I want to sit in the garden and read one more good book. Most of all I want to sleep. I want to sleep like I slept when I was a boy. Give me that, just one time.”

— Raymond Reddington, The Blacklist

A life made up entirely of the feeling the above quote evokes doesn’t sound too bad. For some, it might even be idyllic.

I'm reminded of poet Emily Dickinson whenever I ponder this topic. Her poetry is outspoken, emotional and electric. To read her work is to go on many journeys, far beyond the confines of the day-to-day. Yet she seldom left the walls of her house. She was reclusive to the point of pathology (agoraphobia would be the most probable diagnosis these days). I hold her as the perfect archetype of someone who chose creation over experience. Her status in literature is legendary because of it, but her daily existence was starved of adventure.

What would she do if she lived in the time of AI? Quite probably, she would change nothing. But, I do like to think that it might have been the impetus for her to live out many of the things she only wrote about.

A Creation-less World

It is, in my view, knee-jerk to handwave off the prospect of a creation-less society. Why do we make things? The most obvious answer is that we need to. Again, that’s the functional argument. Another answer is that we gain validation from making something. Other people respect us, admire us, and give us money, attention and plaudits. Then there’s the internally driven answer. We create because it simply brings us joy, even if no one else benefits from or interacts with it. I am amenable to the view that creation is integral to human nature and that it’s a self-justifying thing. Even when it’s non-functional or not needed, it’s still important to us. Much of art can be categorised this way. I am also well aware of how this circle can be squared: “creation is, in itself, an experience.” But let’s sit with this idea.

What if, in X number of decades into the future, generations of people grow up with a massively diminished desire to create? Our evolutionary path necessitated creativity for the sake of survival. That might change. As creation is evermore outsourced, society will be increasingly geared towards experiences. It might be to such an extent that each day could be filled with great moments. We’ll figure out how to perfectly calibrate the cycle of activities to bring out maximum consumptive pleasure. This feels far-fetched, but it’s not so different from the addictive nature of social media or much of today’s food. Those examples are unhealthy, but they needn’t be that way in the future.

Everyone gives something out, or back. In that sense, we cannot escape our capacity to create. But a life of pure unadulterated consumption has its appeal. The one thing that cannot be replaced is your own experience. No one, or no thing, can live your life for you. There is no comparison or competition there. It’s complete ownership. You are the only you.

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