Opinion: From 4D at EP to a Bongo doc, AI can’t kill this creative’s fire

Creativity is an existential need that AI won’t eradicate, no matter how sophisticated it gets, says Jonathan McCrea in his latest column.

At Electric Picnic a few years back, I found myself on stage narrating a story I’d written about a market seller in Marrakech to a room full of blindfolded people who were being fed lamb and mango tagine while being gently caressed with silk scarves.

Around the room, we had created a 4D moving soundscape of souk merchants, flute playing, a call to prayer, the ever-present hum of a bustling crowd.

It was an experiment in sensory immersion and a wonderfully fun event that I designed in collaboration with my long-time creative partner, chef Ivan Varian.

We have run all sorts of quirky events over the years, including a live documentary about lobotomy that will probably stick in the minds of the audience for some time.

I have an existential need to create things. Documentaries, events, programmes, apps. Yet now we are being told that AI is a threat to creativity, artists and even art itself.

At least, that’s what so many headlines have been warning us. In a piece titled ‘AI art and the ruins of human creativity’, Sarah Manavis says that generative AI “may lead not just to a homogenisation of art, but also a homogenisation of culture”.

‘I have an existential need to create things’

Moral panics have been with us since we knew how to panic. In just my own living memory, there’s been television, video games, the internet, social media and of course 5G.

Sorting the cream from the slop

Before I talk about the potential upside, it’s probably fair to acknowledge the real problems here. And they are manifold.

Firstly, there’s the fact that almost all large language models have taken the private works of artists, writers, filmmakers and YouTube streamers and ingested them without permission or acknowledgement.

There are exceptions to this of course: Adobe offers a yearly bonus to artists whose work is used to train its generative AI tools, such as Firefly; Canva has established a $200m fund for creators who contribute to its stock program and allow their content to be used for AI training; and Suno pays some of its artists for allowing their music to train its AI. One of the staff in my 10 year-old’s school gets royalties every month for doing just this.

But for the large part, there has been a lot of smashing and grabbing. It’s why so many providers including Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic and Midjourney are currently the subject of copyright lawsuits.

Secondly, these platforms are creating an incredible amount of ‘AI slop’. Whether it’s fake news, Studio Ghibli style self-portraits, incredibly formulaic LinkedIn posts or endless AI videos of self-aware AI characters, the internet is quickly becoming a slosh of objectively bad creative work.

And it’s drowning out a lot of good stuff. Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram are bursting at the seams with fake content that’s built not for the love of making something, but for the hope that you might view, click or even share a post and yield some micro-transaction of value in terms of advertising revenue. This trend is not just insanely wasteful; it’s also causing problems for the AI itself as models are being trained on pastiches rather than original works.

So, you have the problem of AI eating itself, and we are the ones left having to unclog the toilet.

AI as a creative’s tool

Something has to change, but in the meantime, take heart in the fact that this technology is allowing us creative types to do new things too.

I’m producing a documentary at the moment about the Bongo, an African antelope that is critically endangered. It’s a really beautiful animal.

We wanted to do this shot made famous by Alfred Hitchcock (poor reproduction is not reserved just for AI, you know), it’s called a Vertigo shot and was first seen in the film of the same name.

The idea is that you zoom in while simultaneously pulling back the camera so that the background bursts into frame. Doing this with a drone usually means that you have to shoot a non-synch shot because the sound of the drone will drown out your voice. But using a new AI-filtering technique, we were able to remove the sound of the drone completely, allowing us to do something impossible only six months ago.

‘Being inventive really helps to come up with novel uses in AI for business too’

My son and his friends made up a role-playing game that has lots of exotic locations like ‘Shroobidoobidu Mountain’ and the ‘Castle of Madoobu’ on planet ‘Ooo’. We’re using Manus.ai to turn it into a playable online game with a combat mechanic, an interactive map and images of all his bizarre characters, weapons and collectible items.

As part of my inevitable mid-life crisis, I have taken up wing foiling (I can’t afford a Porsche). It’s an incredible sport, but you need the right conditions to go out.

Using Lovable, a vibe-coding AI platform, I built a website where you can check a map of Ireland for wind and get it to send you an alert when the conditions are ideal. I’ve connected it to a Met Éireann API to get real-time data – I don’t know how to do that, but Lovable did. I’m even working on having it reschedule my appointments automatically, but don’t tell my clients that. I have no idea how to code, but this new generation of technology allows me to publish a site just by thinking about how it should work and what it should look like.

It’s not just myself I’m indulging. Being inventive really helps to come up with novel uses in AI for business too.

I’m helping one client use a small lightbox and AI video generation tools such as Sora and Midjourney to dramatically reduce their professional product photography costs and it’s a really fun, creative exercise. I’m helping another create really sexy marketing videos using Higgsfield AI.

So, it’s complicated.

Yes, AI is hugely problematic in many ways, but it’s also giving people like me a new suite of tools to finally get the many, many ideas in our heads out there into the real world.

We’re seeing people’s ingenuity manifest in all sorts of exciting, bizarre and delightful projects.

I don’t think AI will ever put an end to that, because seeking out new experiences is so innately human.

AI slop will come and go, but the desire to create is forever.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, the King of Madoobu has requested an audience, and I mustn’t delay.

For more information about Jonathan McCrea’s Get Started with AI, click here.

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