The end of productivity
November 18, 2024 11:27 AM Subscribe
Why creativity is the new currency of success As AI gets better at handling traditional productivity tasks, human creativity - not efficiency - will become the real differentiator.
The piece suggests we're moving from an era where "doing more, faster" was the key to success, to one where making original, emotionally resonant work matters most.
Maybe the tendency to think differently, make unique connections, and come up with out-of-the-box ideas will become a superpower? Or is it already??
This post was deleted for the following reason: Promoting your employer, not allowed on Mefi -- taz
So everyone who needs a job is going to be a creative now? And this is why, as we move over to AI, creatives are being rewarded so incredibly well?
Or is it that writing marketing material as a creativity influencer, which is what this looks like, is still the way to make money?
Lo these many years ago, I was at a town hall meeting where workers at the local nuclear power plant and people from their town were arguing with people who wanted to close the power plant down. What about jobs, said the plant workers. Well, said the close-it-down folks, this is such a beautiful area - we'll be able to develop so much tourism, and you can all work in the tourism industry! The plant people tried to explain that slinging burgers to out of towners in the summer (since this area was deadly cold in winter and unsuitable for winter tourism) wasn't going to replace a nine to five union job with good benefits, but didn't seem to make much headway.
Although technically I was on the close-it-down side, I've never forgotten that exchange because our side was so asinine - truly a bunch of clueless out of town white-collar people telling working class people that they should retool their entire local economy to seasonal tourism (without, eg, mountains or a famous beauty spot or even a good location for a festival) and hey, everything would be hunky-dory.
Now I'm in the same situation on the opposite side - being told by someone richer and more connected than I am that I should hustle-culture my way into being a "creative" and that this will replace a good nine to five with benefits.
The power plant didn't close down, granted, so people kept their jobs, but I'm afraid I'm going to get it in the neck.
posted by Frowner at 12:10 PM on November 18, 2024 [34 favorites]
Or is it that writing marketing material as a creativity influencer, which is what this looks like, is still the way to make money?
Lo these many years ago, I was at a town hall meeting where workers at the local nuclear power plant and people from their town were arguing with people who wanted to close the power plant down. What about jobs, said the plant workers. Well, said the close-it-down folks, this is such a beautiful area - we'll be able to develop so much tourism, and you can all work in the tourism industry! The plant people tried to explain that slinging burgers to out of towners in the summer (since this area was deadly cold in winter and unsuitable for winter tourism) wasn't going to replace a nine to five union job with good benefits, but didn't seem to make much headway.
Although technically I was on the close-it-down side, I've never forgotten that exchange because our side was so asinine - truly a bunch of clueless out of town white-collar people telling working class people that they should retool their entire local economy to seasonal tourism (without, eg, mountains or a famous beauty spot or even a good location for a festival) and hey, everything would be hunky-dory.
Now I'm in the same situation on the opposite side - being told by someone richer and more connected than I am that I should hustle-culture my way into being a "creative" and that this will replace a good nine to five with benefits.
The power plant didn't close down, granted, so people kept their jobs, but I'm afraid I'm going to get it in the neck.
posted by Frowner at 12:10 PM on November 18, 2024 [34 favorites]
Probably not. They did a study, having students rate Shakespear verse vs ChatGPT drivel, and the students mostly preferred ChatGPT drivel.
posted by sohalt at 12:17 PM on November 18, 2024
posted by sohalt at 12:17 PM on November 18, 2024
Well, that's the real future, and not just for media.
AI-slop media churned out en masse and low-production-cost goods and food that are passable enough for the masses, high-quality but high-expense real media and goods and food for the rich. There will be a small class of very highly paid creatives and boutique manufacturers and agriculture concerns to cater to those rich with scarps for the rest who make up the bulk of the population.
Sorry, when I said "real future" I meant "what's happening right now". Since the vast majority of us aren't going to be among the rich, I guess try to get into that small class of service providers while you can.
posted by star gentle uterus at 12:40 PM on November 18, 2024 [6 favorites]
AI-slop media churned out en masse and low-production-cost goods and food that are passable enough for the masses, high-quality but high-expense real media and goods and food for the rich. There will be a small class of very highly paid creatives and boutique manufacturers and agriculture concerns to cater to those rich with scarps for the rest who make up the bulk of the population.
Sorry, when I said "real future" I meant "what's happening right now". Since the vast majority of us aren't going to be among the rich, I guess try to get into that small class of service providers while you can.
posted by star gentle uterus at 12:40 PM on November 18, 2024 [6 favorites]
Awesome, can't wait. I've been creative all my life - I even remember being creative before anyone thought to add the article to it - and it's netted me I think over 40 years of adulthood maybe somewhere in the mid 4 figures? Counting all the paintings and prints sold and the articles written and all that sort of thing. Do I include writing and designing newsletters and ads and brochures and such for various actual underpaid jobs at nonprofits or colleges? Cause I do that too and it's never made me much either.
I score super high on creative tests. I think out of the damn box like it doesn't even exist. In this late capitalist hellscape it's a pointless superpower talent and somehow - SOMEHOW! - I just don't think that's going to change. Particularly when I keep getting told gleefully that AI can absolutely do my job(s).
posted by mygothlaundry at 12:54 PM on November 18, 2024 [20 favorites]
I score super high on creative tests. I think out of the damn box like it doesn't even exist. In this late capitalist hellscape it's a pointless superpower talent and somehow - SOMEHOW! - I just don't think that's going to change. Particularly when I keep getting told gleefully that AI can absolutely do my job(s).
posted by mygothlaundry at 12:54 PM on November 18, 2024 [20 favorites]
I wonder if "creatives" as a class will ever have enough power, or a powerful enough ally, to get something like patents that can protect them from those who would ape their style via AI? Like, if patents were a thing to help protect inventors from those who would make cheap copies without having to invest in R&D, it would be nice if there were something that could protect creators who invest time and effort in building a style, or something else that people want, from having that be cheaply replicated by AI.
It seems unlikely that this will happen: big copyright owners and existing IP beneficiaries are probably not concerned about helping creatives as a class.
posted by pulposus at 1:05 PM on November 18, 2024 [1 favorite]
It seems unlikely that this will happen: big copyright owners and existing IP beneficiaries are probably not concerned about helping creatives as a class.
posted by pulposus at 1:05 PM on November 18, 2024 [1 favorite]
As with all of these articles, the author/opinion haver is massively underestimating the amount of creativity and intelligence necessary for “normal” work. Everyone believes that everyone else’s jobs are simpler than they are, and AI is the empty promise of automation of the “easy” jobs that really don’t exist.
posted by q*ben at 1:15 PM on November 18, 2024 [9 favorites]
posted by q*ben at 1:15 PM on November 18, 2024 [9 favorites]
Speaking from personal experience, however, it feels clear that for our brains, the act of reading and reflecting on a book is not all that different from the act of writing one.
That is such a bonkers take that I started to suspect the article itself was written by AI.
As an ad for Sublime, it's not even that persuasive. Why should I, a creative person, use their app instead of continuing to bounce between my paper notebook and Obsidian? Are you cheaper? Are you secretly 2010 Evernote? There needs to be a reason beyond "creative" vibes?
posted by betweenthebars at 1:38 PM on November 18, 2024 [7 favorites]
That is such a bonkers take that I started to suspect the article itself was written by AI.
As an ad for Sublime, it's not even that persuasive. Why should I, a creative person, use their app instead of continuing to bounce between my paper notebook and Obsidian? Are you cheaper? Are you secretly 2010 Evernote? There needs to be a reason beyond "creative" vibes?
posted by betweenthebars at 1:38 PM on November 18, 2024 [7 favorites]
When I was finishing school an adult friend simplified the occupational world as 'jobs where you work with people and jobs where you don't work with people'.
Now this is probably a little too trite, but it gets at something fundamental about how you can view the nature of work. I bring it up here because I think that 'digital machines' have risen to the level of cultural immersion where they can sort of be added to this short list because they have so much gravity on how the economy and work are understood.
Maybe it's not exactly 'creative' work, but it seems likely that a big part of future occupations will be 'translating' between the outputs of digital machines and the stakeholders that hope to benefit from them. Which expands the job sets to:
[people<>people...people<>stuff...people<>digital]
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 2:03 PM on November 18, 2024
Now this is probably a little too trite, but it gets at something fundamental about how you can view the nature of work. I bring it up here because I think that 'digital machines' have risen to the level of cultural immersion where they can sort of be added to this short list because they have so much gravity on how the economy and work are understood.
Maybe it's not exactly 'creative' work, but it seems likely that a big part of future occupations will be 'translating' between the outputs of digital machines and the stakeholders that hope to benefit from them. Which expands the job sets to:
[people<>people...people<>stuff...people<>digital]
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 2:03 PM on November 18, 2024
The End of Productivity: Why creativity is the new currency of success
By Sari Azout
Sari Azout is the founder of Sublime, a knowledge tool designed for creative thinking. She was previously a partner at Level Ventures.
I hope her plumber charges her $300 for a 50 cent toilet part.
posted by AlSweigart at 2:19 PM on November 18, 2024 [19 favorites]
By Sari Azout
Sari Azout is the founder of Sublime, a knowledge tool designed for creative thinking. She was previously a partner at Level Ventures.
I hope her plumber charges her $300 for a 50 cent toilet part.
posted by AlSweigart at 2:19 PM on November 18, 2024 [19 favorites]
And /thread. I smelled the foul odor of VC puffery just from reading the title. Good to know my detector still works.
posted by Room 101 at 2:28 PM on November 18, 2024 [8 favorites]
posted by Room 101 at 2:28 PM on November 18, 2024 [8 favorites]
as a composer of weird music, I can say with confidence that Big Capital would rather choke to death on its own bile than offer any sort of just compensation for music that is actually "creative" (i.e. non-commercial)
posted by daisystomper at 4:14 PM on November 18, 2024 [7 favorites]
posted by daisystomper at 4:14 PM on November 18, 2024 [7 favorites]
massively underestimating the amount of creativity and intelligence necessary for “normal” work.
I work in accounting and finance, creativity is absolutely critical to progress beyond a certain point. I enjoyed writing and designing before going to university and could have plausibly entered those fields.
Writing a concise yet cogent proposal, designing beautiful yet effective infographics, delivering a persuasive and influential pitch... motivating and inspiring my team, dare I say creating an enduring mythology - the idea that they have joined a team that has achieved greatness, and will continue to achieve greatness, regardless of which individuals are within it, since we will all move on at some point.
I like to say that we turn an ocean of data into actionable information. The "routine" work was long outsourced to global hubs where they can hire accountants and finance managers for 1/5th of our salary. We're now working in R&D and modelling the future 5-10 years in advance, looking at huge sea changes - changes in government policy, changes in raw material prices, changes in consumer tastes, even changes in technology.
To a significant degree, these risks aren't immutable and can be influenced by the application of government lobbying, hedging, marketing and R&D - so we quantify the risks and benefits of both action and inaction.
Routine work has always been progressively automated and outsourced. Yet what seems routine today had to be created and developed by someone in the past.
posted by xdvesper at 4:35 PM on November 18, 2024 [2 favorites]
I work in accounting and finance, creativity is absolutely critical to progress beyond a certain point. I enjoyed writing and designing before going to university and could have plausibly entered those fields.
Writing a concise yet cogent proposal, designing beautiful yet effective infographics, delivering a persuasive and influential pitch... motivating and inspiring my team, dare I say creating an enduring mythology - the idea that they have joined a team that has achieved greatness, and will continue to achieve greatness, regardless of which individuals are within it, since we will all move on at some point.
I like to say that we turn an ocean of data into actionable information. The "routine" work was long outsourced to global hubs where they can hire accountants and finance managers for 1/5th of our salary. We're now working in R&D and modelling the future 5-10 years in advance, looking at huge sea changes - changes in government policy, changes in raw material prices, changes in consumer tastes, even changes in technology.
To a significant degree, these risks aren't immutable and can be influenced by the application of government lobbying, hedging, marketing and R&D - so we quantify the risks and benefits of both action and inaction.
Routine work has always been progressively automated and outsourced. Yet what seems routine today had to be created and developed by someone in the past.
posted by xdvesper at 4:35 PM on November 18, 2024 [2 favorites]
I work in digital, used to be in IT delivery but now in product. Throughout my career there has been this clear line between the 'creatives' (content producers, writers, artworkers, concept designers) and the rest of us schmucks who just - you know do all the other stuff that glues these elements together and actually enables them to be witnessed anywhere other than via a single, proprietary channel. This makes me merely a 'technician' in the eyes of my employers (and many colleagues).
Yet I have a BA and an MSc in Media production and I spend my spare time making music in several bands, including artwork and promo, creating over-ambitious installations for the joy of it and problem-solving like a mofo to a) find opportunities for expression and b) making them happen.
I feel like I use the exact same mental muscles in both scenarios, it's only context that deems one aspect 'creative' and the other not.
But I also think there's an elephant in the room that never seems to get discussed. In both contexts the core content (media, music, data, product whatever) could probably be generated by AI to some degree, but the process of physically manifesting it to receptive eyes and ears beyond a single flat channel requires a million more moving parts. Yes some of those parts come together via automation, and many components can be self generating, but the work required to envision and aggregate the whole - eg pull together something as simple as a local gig, or as complex as the Amazon fulfilment network, is way beyond the capacity of AI (systems, currently) because it requires lateral thinking. Creativity, it seems, generates the platforms without which AI would be next-to-useless. This is not a superpower, it's just common-or-garden problem solving.
Or maybe I am delusional. Guess we'll find out!
posted by freya_lamb at 4:53 PM on November 18, 2024 [3 favorites]
Yet I have a BA and an MSc in Media production and I spend my spare time making music in several bands, including artwork and promo, creating over-ambitious installations for the joy of it and problem-solving like a mofo to a) find opportunities for expression and b) making them happen.
I feel like I use the exact same mental muscles in both scenarios, it's only context that deems one aspect 'creative' and the other not.
But I also think there's an elephant in the room that never seems to get discussed. In both contexts the core content (media, music, data, product whatever) could probably be generated by AI to some degree, but the process of physically manifesting it to receptive eyes and ears beyond a single flat channel requires a million more moving parts. Yes some of those parts come together via automation, and many components can be self generating, but the work required to envision and aggregate the whole - eg pull together something as simple as a local gig, or as complex as the Amazon fulfilment network, is way beyond the capacity of AI (systems, currently) because it requires lateral thinking. Creativity, it seems, generates the platforms without which AI would be next-to-useless. This is not a superpower, it's just common-or-garden problem solving.
Or maybe I am delusional. Guess we'll find out!
posted by freya_lamb at 4:53 PM on November 18, 2024 [3 favorites]
> .. but the process of physically manifesting it to receptive eyes and ears beyond a single flat channel requires a million more moving parts. Yes some of those parts come together via automation, and many components can be self generating, but the work required to envision and aggregate the whole - eg pull together something as simple as a local gig, or as complex as the Amazon fulfilment network, is way beyond the capacity of AI (systems, currently) because it requires lateral thinking.Not only that, but aggregating those systems together will constantly change. Amazon tweaks their fulfilment process, the local gig gets new software, infrastructure changes all the time. AI systems need a base of training data. If the data is constantly shifting as things and processes change, your base is built on sand.
posted by Hardcore Poser at 5:50 PM on November 18, 2024
"The End of Productivity" is the name of my next BurnoutCore album.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 6:16 PM on November 18, 2024
posted by I-Write-Essays at 6:16 PM on November 18, 2024
> ... your base is built on sand.
In software development, our base has always been built on sand. In fact, I frequently describe software development as "A house of cards built on a bed of quicksand." - it's extremely fragile from above, and constantly rotting from below. AI doesn't fundamentally change that, it just represents the newest fad adding to the rot. 99% of the software cycle is maintenance.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 6:22 PM on November 18, 2024 [3 favorites]
In software development, our base has always been built on sand. In fact, I frequently describe software development as "A house of cards built on a bed of quicksand." - it's extremely fragile from above, and constantly rotting from below. AI doesn't fundamentally change that, it just represents the newest fad adding to the rot. 99% of the software cycle is maintenance.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 6:22 PM on November 18, 2024 [3 favorites]
This seems like a bit of a silly take. The history of automation suggests that when something gets automated, the manual process becomes boutique, expensive, and a mechanism for basically conspicuous consumption (“look at my beautiful hand carved wood table!”). I would expect exactly the same thing to happen to anything AI can successfully automate: the value if something created by a person is primarily that you can claim it was created by a person and you paid a lot for it. Not that productivity itself will magically become meaningless and useless.
posted by techbasset at 9:06 PM on November 18, 2024
posted by techbasset at 9:06 PM on November 18, 2024
“Look at my beautiful hand written paperback book!” <- me in 10 years
posted by gottabefunky at 9:17 PM on November 18, 2024
posted by gottabefunky at 9:17 PM on November 18, 2024
"ere the hour of the twattering of bards in the twitterlitter between Druidia and the Deepsleep Sea"
-James Joyce.
posted by clavdivs at 9:33 PM on November 18, 2024
-James Joyce.
posted by clavdivs at 9:33 PM on November 18, 2024
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This is NOT new this is what we respected yearned for in the 1970's
posted by robbyrobs at 11:56 AM on November 18, 2024 [3 favorites]