Light and Shade: exploring creativity’s AI conundrum

In early 2022, I saw something weird on the internet. Martin McAllister, a Cannes Grand Prix winning ECD, was using (what was then) rudimentary AI to draw other people’s “dream careers” on (what was then) Twitter. That account, thankfully, is still available to explore here. At the time, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion were in their early stages, and many generative AI platforms were still in beta. Generated drawings like this had begun cropping up online and, at the time, I could think of no better use of AI technology than Martin’s job bot. It was funny, frivolous and bizarre. AI, I thought, has been completed.

It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been wrong. The evolution that has unfolded since Martin’s drawings is dizzying. Today, generative AI is nestled into the features of the biggest creative products. Access to disciplines previously requiring specialist training has been ripped open. AI has become a lucrative creative specialism for some, a helpful assistant for others, and a creative adversary for just as many more.

At It’s Nice That, it’s been a tale of two halves. Some of the creative projects we’ve seen built with the technology are extraordinary. But just as bright as these shoots of creative expression feel, the rise of AI has brought with it questions that our industry alone can’t solve.

The shifts are felt personally as much as they are culturally. As AI swells in influence, uncertainty is now a common feeling among creatives, compounded by the job cuts, economic pressure and siloed working culture that has risen since the pandemic. It’s not just the new tools that creatives must navigate, but a growing loss of control – over who owns their work, over their future role, over their data and even over the potential societal impacts.

Light and Shade is a new series exploring the challenges at the heart of the AI-creative conversation today.

In 2023, we launched an editorial series about AI called Shades of Intelligence. We learnt a lot about the way creatives were beginning to work with this new tech, harnessing it for tasks ranging from creative direction to project rollout. Since then, the needs have shifted. After two years of rapid change, Light and Shade focuses on the wider impacts of AI in the creative industry: the ethical and creative dilemmas that are dividing opinion and defining our relationship with this technology.

Light and Shade unpacks five key topics in the AI age: jobs, ownership, environmentalism, productivity and homogenisation.

At the start of this project, we hoped to uncover perspectives often overlooked in AI discourse. In our features, however, some familiar topics were too significant to ignore.

The impact of AI on creative jobs has received significant attention in the industry, but less attention is given to the experience for juniors today. In our first feature, writer and designer Carly Ayres explores what design educator Kelin Carolyn Zhang calls an “empty void” of opportunities, speaking with educators, juniors and mentors about how they’re meeting this moment head-on.

Next, copyright, ownership and plagiarism – central to the AI-creative debate – are explored through a historic lens, as writer Gus Harrison traces to the very roots of copyright law in 1710, to better understand the turning point we’re living in. Similarly, AI’s environmental toll has occupied mainstream headlines this past year, while little guidance exists for creatives who are beginning to use AI, but are concerned about its carbon footprint. In our primer on the issue, we speak to three environmental experts to get a clearer picture.

Beneath these headline topics, we unpick a less-discussed question about AI: how is it impacting our creativity? Firstly, writer Joe Zadeh confronts “the productivity paradox” – the illusion that AI will speed creative work up – by making a case for AI as a slow, explorative partner instead. Finally, in a comic by artist Jordan Bolton, we explore how to avoid “a great sameness” in our generative age, ensuring AI continues to expand our creative potential, rather than flattening our collective richness.

Light and Shade was grounded in expert interviews carried out by It’s Nice That’s research department, Insights.

This series is shaped by insights from creative founders, technologists, researchers, artists, writers, designers, lecturers and environmental and computational experts. What they shared not only shaped the series but challenged us, showing benefits of AI we hadn’t imagined, and risks where we once assumed safety.

These conversations also revealed divided feelings. We found optimism and a desire to make the most of these advancements, but also disillusionment. We have heard stories from creatives whose careers and practices have been transformed through AI, and from those who sense fundamental flaws with the way it is currently interacting with creative work. This series doesn’t attempt to define the correct view, but to bring both the light and shade into sharper focus.

The voices that helped shape Light and Shade include: Noman Bashir, computing and climate impact fellow at MIT; James Bridle, artist, writer and technologist; Alex de Vries, PhD candidate at VU Amsterdam’s Institute for Environmental Studies and founder of Digiconomist; Linda Dounia Rebeiz, artist, designer and writer; Shaolei Ren, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California; Tonia Samsonova, founder of AI company Exactly.ai; Paula Scher, graphic designer and Pentagram partner; Sanchit Sawaria, art director and design generalist; Isabelita Virtual, creative director and director of the Online Master in Generative AI at Labasad; Tom White, artist, researcher and computational design lecturer at the University of Wellington School of Design; Forest Young, design leader and executive director of design at FundamentalCo; Kelin Carolyn Zhang, designer and educator teaching AI Software Design Studio at Rhode Island School of Design; Naheel Jawaid, founder of Silicon Valley School of Design; Dev Makker, product designer, 3D artist and Parsons School of Design graduate; and Angela Lungati, technologist and Creative Commons chair.