we sacrificed creativity for nothing

the era of exploration vs the era of recommendations, does research for research's sake make sense?

I cherish those moments when I'm lying on the carpet in my room and there are 20 different books spread around me with things I need to read, mark the most important, learn more about, and make my own notes. I adore it when I create something of my own, a chapter of a novel, a blog post, content on social media, and I have 20 different tabs open, bookmarked with articles and sites that I found useful. I feel a sense of excitement when I have chaos and can sort it all out on my own, evaluate if they are helpful to me, dig into something new and in my own words describe what I'm feeling. I just love being in the era of exploration.

But I have a feeling that the era of recommendations is starting to unbearably dominate the era of exploration, and it's hard to find yourself in it. Not so long ago, we would probably think of artificial intelligence as something that is our future, a new invention that will probably one day enter everyday life. Well, this “everyday life” is now playing out before our eyes and surrounds us from all sides, all we have to do is use the Internet.

Opinions are very extreme. Some see it as an opportunity for themselves, which can make everything easier for us, because why bother with something that can be searched in five seconds and instead, devote yourself to something else. Nowadays it only takes two clicks to get online anything that would take more time on our own, no need to move at home to the library, bookstore, anywhere. This goes for the creation process itself - book covers, brand promotional materials, photoshoots, that's where artificial intelligence has managed to sneak in.

It's 2025, and whatever you say, anyone can become an ‘artist’ without even needing talent to do so. AI will write every possible text for you, summarize any article you find interesting, search for information on any topic you choose, read it for you and tell you what to think about it. Want to know what everyone is talking about, but haven't watched the latest season of a popular TV series? The AI will tell you everything that happened there in points. Want to start creating on the Internet, but don't have any ideas? The AI will give you ready-made topics, describe them for you, create all the material. Your online environment is programmed for you, for your preferences, for what you might be looking for, it suggests solutions, chooses for you, before you ask a question, you already get the answer.

We are in an era where we don't have to think about what to consume, you will be served the content you need to know right under your nose - on youtube, instagram, tiktok, google, everywhere, based on previous likes.

But doesn't this lock us into a certain bubble of what we've enjoyed and been comfortable with so far? We surround ourselves with only that, so we take advantage and don't open ourselves to anything new, we don't even try to search, we just trustingly follow what has been suggested to us as right and appropriate. We don't grow, our views don't evolve, our horizons aren't broader because we don't learn any other points of view. Algorithms cleverly select information to agree with what we think, so we don't even have a chance to change our way of thinking. And no one has to change their views, but it's important to have a chance to learn about different perspectives, compare and stay with what we agree with.

By living this way, don't we agree to bland, mediocre content? For someone to decide what kind of things we assimilate? Who knows better than you what you are really curious about, what you think, what you expect? All we have to do is step out of the zone of safe habits and limitations for a moment, go deeper into what we find fascinating, and suddenly we can find things that artificial intelligence wouldn't immediately suggest to us, because it's different from our existing circles of interest, but incredibly intriguing. Suddenly we have a plethora of topics we want to explore that are completely foreign to us.

We want to have everything right now, quickly, briefly, effortlessly, but how does this affect our brain development? Some people can no longer even focus on consuming longer formats, because the brain is switched to having this content constantly changing. We're swallowed up by multitasking - we can't watch a movie two hours long without even glancing at our phone screen. We have a hard time reading more than 10 pages of a book. We constantly feel that we're missing something, that we need to stay up to date, that if we turn off the Internet even for a moment, we'll fall behind. That we will miss out on something important. Meanwhile, we often know nothing about ourselves, who we are, what interests us, what our passion is, what our surroundings look like and feel like.

We often associate conducting research with the fact that we must discover something groundbreaking, show the wider world some previously unknown truth. Of course you can do that, but you can only explore for your own satisfaction, for expanding your knowledge, for stimulating your brain and reminding it that you are an independent, thinking person who can arrive at some information on your own. You'll sit down in some quiet place and for an hour or two, or even more, you'll focus completely on the issue that fascinates you, getting to more truths, more stories, more related threads. You will get lost many times before you actually come to the heart of the matter, but when you reach it, you will be impressed by how much new insight you have gained. You'll be able to have the satisfaction that there's something you can devote yourself to, that you're curious about the world, and you can put that curiosity to good use. Well, or you'll just type a question into gpt chat and in half a second you'll get a generated answer, but will it fulfill your curiosity truly? Will you feel that you have accomplished something by your own efforts?

I belong to a certain larger community, and I know that this is not the only place where it looks like this. Well, the people who have dedicated their years, even their whole lives to being there, are supposed to introduce younger, new adepts so that they are able to get the knowledge they need. They always recommend to them a mass of books, articles, where to start, which way to go, so that newcomers don't get lost in this mass of information, some of which is bound to be false. But always, under the long list of recommended, reliable sources, there will still be questions about the total basics. Those basics that are contained in those books to which one usually has general access. However, this still requires some effort, dedication to a topic they claim to be important to them. And yet they expect someone to provide them with their own notes from their individual path, taken after sitting over books for years, where access to sources was often not so obvious yet.

You know, people were looking for books, for information, when the Internet was just crawling, social media was just being created, there were no e-books yet. There were libraries, books were inaccessible, untranslated, damn expensive.

Back then, they would translate on their own, take notes, compare, analyze and form an opinion about it. Everyone appreciated that any sources on the subject remained, and wanted the knowledge to be spread. Even when the Internet managed to develop, they still had to search all its places, of course people recommended things to each other on various forums and groups, but still someone at the beginning had to find it, read it and form their own opinion. The other person, despite the recommendation. also did the same thing.

Searching for some sources could really frustrate, some you wanted to read, but they were in no way accessible. But you have to pay for the knowledge with your commitment, perseverance, patience and time. They had to separate the information they found relevant and those with which they disagreed. They had to compare them to each other to consider who is right in this case, and is anyone right at all? They thought critically and analyzed every detail. I think the gratitude was much greater, although the opportunities are greater now.

The information was not wrapped in a beautiful, neatly packaged gift, but scattered in pieces, and you had to find each piece and put the whole together. And dig deeper and deeper into the library of information.

We are killing creativity these days. And this is not hyperbole at all, I recently read that artificial intelligence has largely written someone's book. Personally, I've been working on my novel for a couple of years, the concept is changing with my experience, and it will definitely still take quite a while until I finish it and publish it. I could use an AI, he would give me ideas that would surely sell because they would fit into current trends, and finish it in a month or two. But would it still be mine? Would such a novel still have value? Would I get satisfaction from it?

Probably not, because I would know that either the ideas are not from my imagination or not written by me, or both.

I can see that there are people who are liberating themselves from the enticing convenience, ease and speed of the internet, they are becoming more and more interested in niche, not so accessible and popular knowledge. They don't stop at what the first result on google or chat gpt will tell them when they ask questions.Wikipedia can be an introduction to learning about a concept or topic, to finding out that such a thing exists, it can become the beginning of a long research. Because what can this little summary tell you about art, about history, about literature, about philosophy, about music, about any figure, any claim?

To tell you the truth, sometimes I feel that this very process of learning, this effort put into acquiring this knowledge, is more valuable than actually “digging in” to the core of what I wanted to learn.

Act like a journalist sometimes. Start with a concept that has always fascinated you in some way, or that you wanted to learn more about, but never did. And then get deeper into it, see where it takes you, how many stops you make along the way where you want to stay longer. This path will be winding, chaotic but what a fascinating one! It will give you a lot of satisfaction, and you'll be able to call yourself a true explorer and use the information you've gained for your art.

I would very much like to know what you think about this, how do you perceive artificial intelligence, is there a place for it in art, does this art then have a soul and character? When does the boundary of “making things easier” end and “replacing” human a in carrying out tasks begin? Or has it been crossed long ago?

Thank you so much for reading and subscribing. This is a really important topic for me, probably for every creator. Remember that artificial intelligence will never capture what you have in your mind and how fascinatingly you can describe it. Create and don't stop, we need artists. Find me on tiktok, instagram, pinterest, tumblr.