Generative AI: the “GMO” of Creative art

I wrote about this a couple of years ago, just around when generative AI was coming to the mainstream, and I think it makes sense to reiterate now.

From a design and creative point of view, I see generative AI as the GMO of creative design. And from my postulation back then, at some point, the generative AI trend will fizzle out for something more concrete and enduring to take its place. But this takeover won’t be something from the future, nor something from the past, but something that never shifted in its position. It will be a realignment to the present, rather than a walk into the future or a walk backward to the past. I speak of the Soul or the Original Intelligence, or Ntu, in the African cosmology, which is the Breath of the Creator that animates man and his creative power. This Breath cannot be duplicated, emulated, or even improved on by AI. It is constant, eternal, and it’s not a competitor or trend maker.

We are beginning to see more people consciously shift from eating genetically modified food to sourcing organic food, because GMOs contain no life force or “soul”. More people are shifting from using body care products laced with toxic chemicals to simple organic products from nature. In the same way, more people will begin to shift from AI-generated designs because it lacks soul or the human touch. This is already happening in the art and creative space.

More writing platforms are beginning to censor AI-written articles. There is more need for photos taken by real humans than AI-generated images. People are seeking creative work done by real people, and this is just the beginning. But why?

There is something about the life, soul, emotion, and intention that a creator pours into his creation or design that AI cannot replicate. And this is beyond the art of communication through creative design; it’s about something else that flows even without active communication. It just flows from the creator to the created and then to the consumer of the created work. And this is beautiful, even when such work seems imperfect compared to the illusion of perfection that we see with AI-generated designs.

Generative AI gives the illusion of perfection and thus emulates excellence. But perfection does not have a real go-to standard, just personal assumptions and the perspective of the person interpreting what they see. Same with excellence, which is simply implied by the mind of the person beholding, and not a universal law. For what is perfect and excellent to one person might be imperfect to another. Therefore, the reality of perfect imperfection makes sense to the mind of the person on a journey of truth. It is a call to live light and weightless.

Dr Mfniselwa Bhengu, in his article titled: NTU AS A COSMIC CREATIVE LIFEFORCE, wrote:

“In his description of the philosophy of the Bantu people of Rwanda, Alexis Kagame (Muntu: African Culture and the Western World (1961)informs us that the notion of Ntucan be divided into four main categories. These categories are rooted in the structure of Bantu languages which are classificatory languages known for their elaborate determinative noun prefixes. The categorizations are as follows:

• > Mu-Ntu “the intelligent being” (human being)
• > Ki-Ntu “the non-intelligent being” (things)
• > Ha-Ntu “the localizing being” (place-time)
•  > Ku-Ntu “the modal being” (manner of being) 
Muntu, Kintu, Hantu and Kuntu are the four categories of African Philosophy. All being, all essence, in whatever form it is conceived, can be subsumed under one of these categories.

   MuNTU: Is a force endowed with intelligence and has power over speech (nommo, afose, odu, mdw, etc.). This category includes human beings, the spirit of the ancestors, orishas, loas, nTrw, niombo and the Divine itself (the Great Muntu). Umuntu is the specific entity which continues to conduct an inquiry into being, experience, knowledge, and truth. It is the maker of politics, religion, law, culture, etc.

   KiNTU: Is a category that embraces those forces which cannot act for themselves and which can become active only on the command of a muntu. This category includes plants, animals, minerals, tools, objects of customary usage, and so on: in other words, a thing. These objects do not have will like muntu. It should be noted that in some African cultures, like the Dagara and the AmaZulu, the trees would be put into the muntu category as they are endowed with intelligence.

     HaNTU: Space and time fall into this category. Hantu is the force which localizes spatially and temporally every event and every motion. Since all beings are forces, everything is constantly in motion and must be within a specific spatial reality.

KuNTU: Refers to the state or quality of being modal (mode, manner or form). Kuntu, I interpret, is the state or quality of being of that which has been fashioned/created. It is a force seen in such things as beauty and laughter. Within this context, kuntu can be understood as one of the primary forms of sensation, such as vision or touch.”

AI prompts and the thoughts of the mind

As I look into designs, creativity, and even general stuff about life, I see parallels everywhere, and thus I am convinced that our world is definitely orchestrated by an Intelligence that is beyond what we can put together.

Some call this Intelligence God, others Quantum, and others the Universe. Whatever you call it or Him, be sure you know what you are talking about.

I see a parallel between AI prompts and the way human thinking works. Just like you can use prompts to generate ideas and designs from artificial intelligence, your thoughts are the prompts that you use to generate your reality from the Original Intelligence. It’s the same principle. Therefore, you are the creator and the generator of your own reality. Not others, not prophecies, and especially not curses or spells. For as a man thinks, so is he. As he stops to think, so he stops to generate. And as he changes his thoughts from the old, he starts to generate the new. Everything in the Universe is frequency-based, and by the thoughts of a man’s heart, he pulls to himself what frequency he aligns with. For out of the abundance of his heart or the abundance of the quantum field within him, his outer world reveals.

Therefore, just like King Solomon said, there is nothing new under the sun. Even AI is an expression or imitation of the old, the ancient- The Original Intelligence.