Why AI will never, ever, ever, replace human creativity

For the last 100,000 years, human creativity has been our unfair advantage. While other species were busy licking themselves or getting eaten, we were drawing buffalo on cave walls, composing symphonies and making Tiktoks about our dating trauma. Creativity is the special sauce of humanity, the thing that separates us from all the other species. Including the artificial ones.

And do you know why? It’s because we can ask: ‘is it good?’

When we painted the Sistine Chapel, we asked ‘is it good?’

When we listen to Linkin Park, eat Marmite, or watch an episode of Bluey, we ask ‘is it good?’ (Answers: sometimes, no, yes).

And good wins. Always has, always will.

But with AI we are applying different standards. We marvel at how ‘realistic’ the dancing statue looks or how quickly and how many versions we were able to make or how much money it saved. We’re applying different standards because we’re looking at this stuff and…it’s not good. That Coca-Cola Christmas ad? Yawn. Raine & Horne making lots of ‘&’ ads…ok? An AI-driven agency? So…you don’t actually do anything for your clients? A high-profile creative agency using AI to generate an Acknowledgement of Country film? Feels like we’re missing the mark here.

Credit: iStock.com/Olemedia

I’m actually an AI-optimist. I am excited about where AI will take creativity. But I am also excited to declare all the chat that we’re about to lose our jobs officially over. Our jobs are going to be fine. There’ll probably be more jobs. Instead, here is my rallying call to the creative industry, some pillars to codify what’s really happening here so we can talk to our clients – and ourselves – with confidence. (Until we eventually get enslaved by Skynet):

1) Humans have ambitions. AI doesn’t.

Sam Altman is probably smarter than me. He’s definitely richer than me. But to say his technology will be responsible for taking 95% of marketing jobs is…fucking nuts. I mean, who gives a fuck about marketing jobs when you are Prometheus giving fire to humans. That’s like NASA landing people on the moon then telling us all the rocket technology will be great for making air fryers.

We should be talking about the power of AI to solve our clients’ most complex business problems, to change behaviour, or understand the cultural noise, or find new audiences or help design products and services, or to realise big ideas in new ways. Instead, we’re talking about how many banner ads we made. There’s something wrong with that picture.

AI doesn’t have a why. It has a what. We have the why. Use it and make something good.

2) Creativity comes from rebellion. AI plays it safe.

Every great creative breakthrough has come from someone breaking the rules. The Beatles introduced distortion and sitars into pop music. Hilma Af Klint brought mysticism into visual art. Steve Jobs replaced keyboard phones with touchscreens and the stylus with your finger. The rest is (very lucrative) history.

AI doesn’t break rules. It operates within rules. It is, by design, risk-averse. The AI iPhone (the AiPhone™ if you will) would’ve been a cooler looking Blackberry.

It’s in our nature to rebel. We get frustrated at the world around us, we question authority, and then we reframe things for people. That leads to big things. No AI will ever wake up one day and decide to tear up the rulebook. But we can. And it will be good.

Credit: iStock.com/Dilok Klaisataporn

3) Creativity is the enemy of dull. AI has no enemy.

I posted on LinkedIn recently “No one talking about AI taking creative agency jobs since that Super Bowl ?” The reason we heard crickets from the ‘AI will eat creatives’ corner of LinkedIn is because the best Super Bowl ads were TOTALLY BATSHIT UNHINGED GREATNESS AND WE WERE HERE FOR IT. SEAL AS A SEAL COME ON. Other absurdity of note: Coors Lite sloths, Nick Offerman’s James Harden tache, Tubi’s cowboy hat shaped flesh. It was madcap and boring, there were hits, misses, some sparkling, some kinda gross, but it was all creative

Even OpenAI’s own Super Bowl ad (oh, the irony) was about…creativity. Human leaps. The amazing things that we have to do when we’re thinking about how to light fire or sail the seven seas. Yes, yes, I know they used AI to make the ad, but did they talk about that? No. Did we care? No. We asked, ‘is it good?’ And the answer was ‘yeah kinda, but not as good as SEAL AS A SEAL’. Who would want an AI-generated Christmas ad after all that pure, unhinged originality? No one who wants anything good.

4) Creativity is about curation and taste. AI can’t curate.

Creativity isn’t about generating lots of stuff. That’s called stuff. Creativity is about curation. The best art, literature, music, and design doesn’t just look or sound good; they make you feel something. That’s called taste. AI doesn’t feel. It predicts. It takes vast amounts of existing data and makes statistical guesses about what should come next. That’s useful for efficiency, but it’s a poor substitute for something good.

Taste is subjective. It’s shaped by our upbringing, our experiences, the things we’ve loved and lost. AI doesn’t have that. The real conversation isn’t whether AI will replace creativity (it won’t). It’s how it will change the creative process. AI is a tool, like photography or the printing press. Every major technological breakthrough has sparked fears of creative replacement. And every time, human creativity has evolved.

Where does this leave us? Yes, AI will get better. It will generate more convincing stuff. But it will never replace the messy, emotional, rebellious nature of human creativity. So, if you’re in the creative industries, don’t panic. Adapt. Test your strategic hypotheses, try different narratives, get feedback. But bring your soul to the table. And then ask, ‘is it good?’

Only we can do that.

Simon Wassef is the chief strategy and experience officer at Clemenger BBDO.