The Slow Death of Human Creativity
And my plea on why we need to change course right now.
Music industry technologist, Virginie Berger’s brilliant LinkedIn article struck a chord with me (music pun intended). In it, she argues that we’re experiencing an ‘enshittification’, in front of our very eyes, of human-made creativity, driven by tech companies. She argues that no one cares about copyright. What we care about is convenience. I refer to it as the ignorance of ubiquity, and I am writing about it in my next book, because music is a prime example of how worrying this ignorance is. What matters is not how music gets to us or respecting who owns what, where and why, but simply that it - or a version of it - is available when we want it. Using a Beatles track to back up a TikTok video, or using a simulation of Drake’s voice to create content to impress your friends, is what matters.
Berger writes:
Big Tech didn’t just release models. They launched a narrative. Big Tech’s marketing machine has worked overtime to turn the public against us. One that paints artists as selfish, irrelevant, outdated elites and hysterical. It’s smart, really. Anyone asking for consent, control, or compensation is painted as anti-progress. Meanwhile, those same companies hand the public powerful tools, AI toys that feel liberating, and then blame the artists for questioning the cost.
She paints a picture that is based on a canvas of ignorance. And we are all responsible. The Internet was once a ‘creative commons’. Now, we can’t turn off the often incorrect AI summaries on top of all Google searches and algorithms surveil our every move to regurgitate what they think we want. Ignorance is everywhere. A new viral trend is to use the new ChatGPT image generator function to create a personal action figure. How cool and showy, but doing so uses vast amounts of water and electricity. We’re creating fake pictures of ourselves smiling in boxes while accelerating our demise as a species.
It is not how it gets to us that matters. It’s that it gets to us that matters.
The UK is at the coalface of this, and not just in Scunthorpe. Berger goes on to outline that it is a policy testing ground for Big Tech to declare victory over human creativity, one that accepts that convenience and access matter most. This is buttressed by the seemingly anti-human being policies of the US administration. Today, Vice-President J.D. Vance remarked that there could be a potential trade deal between the US and the UK. In the sanewashing coverage that followed, there was little analysis of what such a ‘trade deal’ means. The coverage stated that the two sectors the US was keen to prioritize was tech and agriculture… in other words, US tech companies continuing to steal human creativity to then sell back to us to make life a little more ‘convenient’ or ‘fun’, or US agriculture firms loosening food safety restrictions to make ecoli great again (MEGA). But it’s all progress because this is ‘free’ trade - the key word here being ‘free’ - forgetting that when anything is free, a part of the transaction is expensive for someone involved.
The UK government, staffed by ministers who understand, value, and enjoy British creativity, is becoming the main protagonist in destroying creative jobs. But I believe this is something the public will accept, because creativity isn’t going away. It’s just available via carbon-heavy AI searches. A few thousand steel jobs are more important to protect than a sector worth 5% of GDP.
It’s OK. A US-owned AI algorithm, trained on UK copyrighted stolen material, can create the next hit.
It’s all exasperating, right?
Do we care about making places better? Are we interested in ChatGPT rather than our local park, especially if we can create action figures of ourselves with a few clicks and litres of water?
My Fightback
Berger’s article hit the nail on the head, but it has not made me despondent. Instead, it has furthered my resolve—and I hope yours as well.
In the next few weeks, I’ll be launching the Music Economy Development Initiative portal, a website I (and my team) have been working on for months that aims to demonstrate how music - if we invested in human beings making it and conducting business around it, including with the help of AI - we could make a serious dent in addressing extreme poverty. To me, the threats - both happening now and that will occur in the future - that Berger discusses are those that mainly concern, and impact the so-called ‘developed’ world. In countries with no framework for copyright, there is nothing to be bypassed, so AI training is another example of a conveyor belt of theft and piracy. If music, design, theatre, or dance were never a job, then fighting for folks to be remunerated for creating it is moot. Unfortunately, in most places that people live, this is and has always been the reality. Culture is a business of workarounds and bypasses. These governments are not trying to dismantle human creativity, because it has never been ‘mantled’.
Berger argues that we need to focus on the value of making. I believe that in countries where there are creative industries, this is true. But I want to go further. We also need to focus on the value of making to improve life around us. And the way to do that is to tie this argument - human beings making music and art matters - into broader issues that concern all of us, no matter who we are.
For example:
How can an expansion in live touring infrastructure better connect communities, pave roads, and improve access to electricity?
How can engaging residents in music and art classes soothe inter-personal and tribal tensions?
How can investing in recording facilities create more taxable revenue for governments, forcing them to care?
How can we show that investing in human beings making music, rather than computers, will keep reservoirs and aquifers sustainable?
Maybe I am naive. Perhaps I am off-base. I know we live in the attention economy - our most valuable currency. In that economy, does anyone honestly care about our reservoirs? Or tribal conflict? Or paved roads? If they do not impact you, probably not. If your high-speed internet and disposable income allow you to run ChatGPT daily, I’m guessing not. But reality will set in, sooner or later, for all of us. The well will run dry, or conflict will come to our front door. And maybe if we care more about human creativity now, everywhere, and fight for its value to be enshrined in what we enshrine as valuable, it will show us that there’s benefit to caring. It’s in our best interests, even for those who work for Big Tech.
Berger ends her piece with this:
This isn’t just about copyright anymore. It’s about labor. It’s about consent. It’s about whether we believe human creativity still matters, and whether we’re willing to defend it.
To me, it is not just about defense. It is about our survival and ability to thrive as a species. Music is something we all share and value, so much so that we’re willing to ignore the inequity in exchange for access to it - same as we do for clean water, a roof over our head, or food to eat. But maybe, at this moment, if we think of what it could do for all of us, it will help us regain the value of human beings, making art as valuable. Or maybe not.
And to close, some actual music.
Join us on Credtent.org and fight back!