{"id":91,"date":"2023-01-05T09:37:05","date_gmt":"2023-01-05T09:37:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/frenify.net\/envato\/frenify\/wp\/xoxo\/1\/?p=91"},"modified":"2024-09-12T10:25:36","modified_gmt":"2024-09-12T10:25:36","slug":"how-to-think-about-your-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/frenify.com\/work\/envato\/frenify\/wp\/yamal\/1\/how-to-think-about-your-career\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Think About Your Career"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s remarkable to watch a five-year-old draw, void of any anxiety about what the world will think. We all start our lives creatively confident, happy to create and share our work with pride. And then, as we age, our comfort with creative expression declines. We\u2019re discouraged by the learning curve of creative skills and tools, by our tendency to compare ourselves to others, and by the harsh opinions of critics. As Picasso famously quipped, \u201cAll children are born artists, the problem is to remain an artist as we grow up.\u201d It is a sad irony: As we age, our creative capabilities (and opportunities!) grow as we collect life experiences that inspire us \u2014 but our creative confidence shrinks. We are more creatively confident in kindergarten than we are as adults. Correcting this is among the greatest opportunities for the next generation of humankind.<\/p>

Well, we\u2019re entering an era that changes everything.<\/strong> A few critical technology breakthroughs and fundamentally more accessible platforms are changing everything. From free web-based tools with templates that help conquer the fear of the blank screen to powerful generative artificial intelligence that conjures up anything from a text prompt, expressing yourself creatively no longer requires climbing creativity\u2019s notoriously steep learning curve.<\/p>

Most of those who have succeeded in life can trace their success back to the essential education they obtained from parents, teachers and\/ or friends.<\/strong><\/p>T-Ralph Olaniyi<\/cite><\/blockquote>

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People from communities of color are underrepresented in publishing. Our books make up less than six percent of the titles released each year, and that\u2019s despite a century of fighting against the gatekeepers. The results of this systematic exclusion are clear: we are also elided from the national conversation, starting in elementary school. Those who live in this country are trained by textbooks, libraries, classrooms, TV, and cinema to see US life as almost exclusively white.<\/p>

The Death of Creativity\u2019s Learning Curve<\/strong><\/h3>
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There is so much else to praise<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>

Welcome to an era in which the friction between an idea, and creatively expressing that idea, is removed. Whether it is as an image, an essay, an animated story, or even a video, you can simply talk about what you see in your mind\u2019s eye and get immediate visual output. \u201cBut that\u2019s not real creativity!\u201d some may exclaim. Until now, \u201ccreativity\u201d has conflated both the generation of ideas and the process involved to express those ideas. Is the process of intricately chiseling a beautiful sculpture creative, or is the idea of the sculpture \u2014 the image conjured up in the mind\u2019s eye \u2014 the truly creative part of an otherwise laborious and tedious process? <\/em>It\u2019s an age-old argument. Michelangelo, for instance, believed that each stone has a statue inside it and the sculptor discovers it by chipping away. At the same time, the great master employed as many as 13 assistants to help him paint the Sistine Chapel. So, it\u2019s complicated.<\/p>

Most artists today can\u2019t afford 13 human assistants, but they use other tools to reduce the laborious parts of creativity, including AI-powered shortcuts, component libraries for product designers, templates, and now generative AI. This latest breakthrough has elicited both fanfare and fear because of its ability to conjure up an original piece of media based solely on a text prompt. Conceptually, it\u2019s like a roomful of inexperienced interns who instantly present you with endless renditions of whatever you describe. Most of what they present will be wrong, but you may get some stuff to work with and, occasionally, something novel will catch your eye.<\/p>

Of course, behind the scenes, the machine learning engines that drive AI creation were trained using millions of pieces of content from real artists, many of whom never consented to have their work used in that way. To correct this, I anticipate a series of regulations, evolutions in copyright law, new walled gardens and token-gated portfolio experiences, and new compensation models for artists that opt-in and\/or allow the use of their style for GenerativeAI purposes. Serious issues to solve and unfortunately, as usual, the availability of such tech preceded these discussions. But here we are, and we need to find the path to sustainability as well as opportunities for both artists and non-artists alike.<\/p>

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The Opportunity for Creative Pros in the Era of Creative Confidence<\/strong><\/h3>

As someone is driven to help all people access the tools for creative expression, it has been thrilling to watch hundreds of millions of people who may have been intimidated by professional-grade tools like Photoshop or Premiere Pro begin tinkering creatively using new template-based and AI-driven tools and technologies. At the same time, there is a common sentiment \u2014 and often times anxiety \u2014 among creative professionals that these tools threaten their livelihoods.<\/p>

Humans have always been frenemies with new technology. We relish the efficiencies and welcome having more brain power for higher-order tasks. And yet we fret about the interim disruptions as we adjust. That was the case with the advent of photography, automobiles, and desktop publishing, and I don\u2019t think this is an exception. As more human jobs become assisted, automated, or replaced by artificial intelligence, we must spend our hours where we have a competitive advantage over machines: developing new ideas, expressing old things in new ways, innovating processes, and crafting the story that infuses our creations with meaning<\/strong>.<\/p>

As generative AI gets better at producing content, it\u2019s important to remember that creativity is about far more than the outcome.<\/strong> The striking and wondrous thing about creativity is its mysterious seeds of origin. Do not new ideas come from genuine curiosity and initiative? Mistakes of the eye? Childhood traumas? Nobody fully understands the origins of ingenuity, but we know it is a function of the arrangement of our neurons and is as individualistic as our fingerprints. The creations that see the light of day in the form of pigment or pixels or breakthrough businesses are the result of these mysterious inner workings. Creativity is not just the output, it is the inputs \u2014 the ideas and the ingenuity. It\u2019s the judgment to know when something is good and when it\u2019s done. It is the creative control to modify and iterate based on a career of fine-tuned intuition. It is the unique human story that brought it to life, and the story we share that gives the work meaning to those who experience it. And it is the innovation in the creative process itself that distinguishes the outcome. As the process part of creativity \u2014 chipping away at the stone or mixing the colors or iterating the pixels \u2014 becomes less of an obstacle, the other parts of creativity \u2014 the original idea, the judgment, the innovations in process, and the story \u2014 become more important than ever.<\/p>

Herein lies the opportunity for the creative professionals among us. While the world becomes more creatively confident and empowered, there will always be an opportunity to go further. The magic of creativity \u2014 the many inputs of life experience, and emotion, and how they influence our approach to our work \u2014 remain in our creative control. And we know, creativity is most impactful when accompanied by meaning and story. AI models and templates can\u2019t generate meaning.<\/p>

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Implications for Creative Careers, Culture, & Beyond<\/strong><\/h3>