Over on one of my other blogs I routinely write about creativity, so the topic of being a human creator in an algorithm-happy universe is something that often crosses my mind.

Being a creative-minded guy has been who I am my whole life.

For as long as I can remember I was the guy writing stories, drawing pictures, making stuff and inventing worlds for all of it to inhabit.  There are a lot of us out there doing that, loving it, and letting that identity wash over us.  

A lot. And that meant a lot of competition for audience—even before AI.

We were a supportive community, of course. We share and uplift and applaud the efforts of fellow humans who are out there giving it there all to make interesting stuff.

But how do we, any of us, compete against an opponent that doesn’t sleep?

That’s the real fear of this AI, true or not, hype or reality, that at some point no matter how much we make or write or code or dream, a machine has immeasurably more output than any of us, maybe all of us.

There is a lot of recent speculation that not only is AI unsustainable but that the perception of a magic brain that can replace us all is as much marketing slop as reality: but that does not negate the fact that fatigue and disillusionment by us mere mortals is a real thing.  That doesn’t mean the algorithm is going to need to do anything but not drop from exhaustion from the race before us.