Latest / ThinkInsideTheSquare / AI Isn't Killing Creativity. But Is It Making Us Lazy? [107]

Transcript

AI Isn't Killing Creativity. But Is It Making Us Lazy? [107] · ThinkInsideTheSquare

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Becca here.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: I am sitting in a Kit Studios recording studio in New York City.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: We are two days post-circle day, and I decided to stick around just a little bit longer because I knew I would just have an overload of creativity and ideas after hanging out with so many creative people in such a short period of time.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: So in this particular episode of Think Inside the Square, I want to talk about something that was coming up over and over again in the different conversations I was having in person here at Squarespace's Circle Day in New York City.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: We were talking about the efficiency of AI, the pressure that a lot of us designers are facing to use these brand new tools to make us more efficient, to make us more productive, and how that is impacting our creativity.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: I've got some clips from great minds in our Squarespace community that I'll be sharing here in this episode.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: So for a link to all of their resources, be sure to visit insidehesquare.co forward slash podcast.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: And before I say anything else, please be aware that the term Squarespace is a trademark of Squarespace Incorporated.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: This content is not affiliated with or endorsed by Squarespace Inc.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: These are just our opinions as Squarespacers out here in this world creating amazing things.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'll have them introduce themselves and then speak on creativity and efficiency with AI and how it's been affecting their work.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_03: I'm Christy Price.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_03: I've been working in web design for over 20 years, and Becca and I've been friends for, oh my goodness, six or seven at least.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_03: Really excited to be here today.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_03: I use a tool called Tella for video recording, and they just rolled out an agent to help you edit the videos really quickly.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_03: And I do really simple edits for my YouTube videos.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_03: If you've seen them, they're very simple.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_03: It's me, sometimes a screen share, edited very plainly.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_03: But with this agent, I found like, oh, I can do overlays and I can add sounds and I can add split screens and all this crazy stuff.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_03: And I was spending so much more time editing my videos than keeping it simple.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_03: So for me, it's also in terms of not giving up my creativity, spending time, you know, on other pursuits.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_03: For me, it's like, well, don't let AI do everything for you.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_03: And another example for me is I was letting AI help me with my email marketing for a while.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_03: And I read back, I get them in my own email inbox, and I read one back one day, and I'm like, this is not me.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_03: This is not me.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_03: And I drew a line in the sand.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_03: I read it all my onboarding and basically said, you're gonna hear from me, not a robot.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_03: So everything is in my emails is written by me.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_03: And that feels so good to me right now.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm really thinking about where I'm making that delineation between what I want the robots to do, what I can do, and yes, not using that time to just create more robot tasks, but actually using it to write my own emails that sound like me and I think have a better connection with my audience.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_03: And I've gotten so many people replying back about that one thing.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_03: And it's like, yeah, that's why I'm still subscribed to your emails.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_03: But, you know, I think we can all look at our own lives and businesses and think about where do we draw this line?
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_03: And it's gonna be different for every single person, but I think just taking a moment to think about that is so important right now.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_06: My name's Aaron Solto.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_06: I'm the founder and creative director for Swan Young Company.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_06: We're based out of Amarillo, Texas.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_06: We help a lot of more of the mid-tier businesses, startups, and organizations with web design, branding, and ongoing partnerships.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_06: I feel with AI, and I I've noticed this because it's this new tool, and you want to use it.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_06: You want to be able to do like all these crazy cool things, but I started to notice myself spending more time using AI to try to be efficient than actually just being efficient and and getting pen and paper and let's let's rock and roll kind of a deal.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_06: I've had to take a step back and get back to my roots.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_06: I take a lot of pride in like the craftsmanship of like branding and web design and just everything in general like that, where I noticed myself using AI to do some of these things and I'm like, hold up, wait, this isn't what I want, but also it felt like I was cheating in a way.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_06: So it's it was one of those just moments where I had to step back and be like, okay, like wait, like AI is great to do certain things, but the creative, what got you to this point, at least in my business, is I can't cheat that.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_06: I can't go lazy with it and use AI to create something.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_06: I need to get back to the roots, go flip a book, go flip some magazines, go like get inspired and find some creativity where you can bring it back.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_06: Because AI is here to stay.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_06: I mean it's coming, it's here.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_06: But what we lack now is that human connection, that authenticity of um being humans.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_06: And I think that's the shift now where people see them, they're like, oh, these designs a AI, they actually made these, and that's what's making my company succeed, is that because like they want that human connection, but also they want something created by a human too, not just uh AI that's gonna look like everyone else's like designs.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Monica Kovac.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: I own Hold Space Creative, uh Squarespace design studio for therapists and coaches.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like about a year ago, I really was like, I really need to give AI a try.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of different things you can do with it.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: I work in tech.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: I need to try to embrace this a little bit and figure it out.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was trying it out with content writing and writing some blog posts and email for me.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: And at first I was like, oh, this is great.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's saving me a lot of time.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: Writing was one of those things that has always taken a lot of time for me because I really like to like think things through, choose words really intentionally.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: And so when it can spit out a blog post in a few minutes, I'm like, oh my gosh, that's so great.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: Then it did not take long, literally like a couple weeks, to notice in myself a shift in like having even more difficulty writing.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: So when I went to write something just for my own brain, it was like the neurons weren't firing.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, why can't I think of that word?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then you know, writing emails as well.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: It was just like taking me almost twice as long to write an email for my own brain.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, well, that's not working.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: If this is a product of AI, if this is what it's doing to my own brain, it's not actually saving me time in this regard.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so for me, it was like this come back down to earth moment of I don't think I can outsource this to my creative works because that's what I got into this for is to just be creative.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I want to outsource that.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to lose it.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I could feel it kind of like slipping away.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like I said, it didn't take long, just a few a few weeks of experimenting, and I was like, absolutely not.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not doing this anymore.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: So it doesn't touch my creative processes now.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_05: Hello.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_05: My name is Will Dash Myers.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_05: It's really just Will Myers, but my website is Will Dash Myers.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_05: The example that always comes into my head is in college.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_05: I would go to the library to go study.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_05: I'm getting ready.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_05: And before studying, before like actually pulling out my notebook, what's what do you do before you study?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_05: Well, you pull up your iTunes and you make sure that all of the albums in iTunes has the right cover art.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_05: You need to go find the cover art and match it with the albums because you obviously can't study until that is done.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_05: So we're gonna get that done, and then at about 3 a.m.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_05: you can start studying.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_05: And that's how I feel like with a lot of this AI stuff.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_05: I just get way sidetracked with all like setting up the process, making sure everything's perfect when that's not getting me anywhere.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_05: That's not helpful.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_05: I just need to do the work.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_05: I've still not found a good way to have AI manage my inbox and help me just keep track of all the various pieces.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_05: I spend hours, like half a day almost sometimes, trying to get the perfect setup for my inbox where I could have just spent a quarter of that time just going through my inbox and doing that, uh, and spending the rest of that time doing something else.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_05: So I don't know, just trying to be aware of where you're spinning on some of these AI things, where it fits into your business, where it doesn't fit into your business, and where maybe it doesn't fit into your business right now.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_05: Maybe you have the good instinct of knowing, okay, this is something, this is a task I want to offload, but you don't have the time, capacity, or you don't have the system set up for it.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_05: And that's fine too.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, I'm Christine, and my website is ChristineNeal.com.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think that working in our industry, it's easy to tinker.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we've all probably had those moments where a new tool was put in front of us, and we've all wanted to try it.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that there's obviously very mixed quality results that come out of that.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, none of them quite feel probably up to par.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that what's really missing is that we don't see ourselves in creative work that's generated by AI because the humanity is missing.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's hard to be really attached and care about creative AI work for that reason.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's really hard to care about something that's ultimately machine generated.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that it's really made me understand that if I want quality creative output, that I need to consistently be the creative input.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: I know AI is getting better and better every day, but I think it has a long way to go to match what humans can do in like a split second.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_04: I am Sam Zelich, community events manager for Squarespace Circle, also the author of the Substack Culture Boy, and other things.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_04: So I definitely have gotten the AI bug a little bit.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_04: I have used it sometimes for research.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_04: I think that it's pretty good for that.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_04: You ask it a very sort of niche question that will give you a list of things.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_04: You have to sort of beg it for fact-checking and links, and then probably should do your own fact-check and verification after that.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_04: But as a sort of base level a person who isn't very good at researching, I think it's pretty helpful, but that for personal reasons.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_04: I was trying to memorize all 50 states and their capitals and their nicknames and their slogans.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_04: I just wanted to be one of those people.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_04: Felt like a good party trick.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_04: And I was like, can you help me do this?
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_04: And it was helpful.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_04: Like it'll give you a quiz and we'll do that kind of thing.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_04: Where I do not want it encroaching upon anything that I'm doing is what I would consider my own personal style or my opportunity to engage aesthetically with the world.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_04: I think that when I'm talking to it, I'm very careful to say, you know, I'm writing a piece about the US Postal Service, I'm looking for a few answers, or I have this theory about this thing.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_04: Can you verify if that's true?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_04: And I say to it, do not do any writing for me.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_04: I just want facts.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_04: So that to me is essential for all of us because if you're any kind of a creative person, you should want to maintain your own aesthetic, your own creative voice.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely some inspiring thoughts from our Squarespace community.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I would love to hear from you.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: How do you feel AI affecting your creativity and how is it affecting your efficiency?
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: Let me know in the comments below.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: Send an email to me, hello at inside the square.co.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: The number one takeaway that I want you to have from this episode is that in this ever-changing, fast-paced world of AI and this pressure that we're all experiencing to produce more and to really increase the amount of content we're sharing with each other, our human experience matters more than ever.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: I want to make sure that if you are using AI to improve your efficiency, that you're spending that extra time being creative.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd love to hear what you're working on.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Again, you can reach me hello at inside the square.co.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Becca from Inside the Square.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for tuning in.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: Be sure to like this episode, comment, share it with a friend, and most importantly, have fun with your Squarespace website.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: Bye for now.