Another Sunday morning, and my head feels like it’s been through a meat grinder. Perfect time to read some fancy New York Times opinion piece about AI and human genius while nursing this bottle of Buffalo Trace. The writer, Christopher Beha, seems like the kind of guy who drinks wine with his pinky up, but he’s stumbled onto something interesting here between all the academic name-dropping.
Here’s the thing about AI that nobody wants to admit: we’re all scared shitless of it because we’ve spent the last fifty years convincing ourselves we’re nothing special. Somewhere between smoking too much French theory in college and worshipping at the altar of evolutionary psychology, we decided humans were just meat computers running outdated software.
The real joke? We did this to ourselves way before ChatGPT showed up to the party. Remember when people actually tried to make new shit instead of just remixing old stuff? Now we’re stuck in this endless loop of superhero movies and “reimagined” TV shows that nobody asked for. We’re so busy recycling culture, we forgot how to create it.
But here’s where it gets interesting, and believe me, I needed another drink to really appreciate this part. This Beha guy points out that we used to believe in something called “genius” - not the Elon Musk “I’m so rich I must be special” kind, but the weird, mystical, “holy shit, where did that come from?” kind. The ancient Greeks had a word for it that basically meant “divine inspiration,” which sounds like bullshit until you realize they were onto something.
You know what’s funny? We’re all terrified that AI is going to start breaking rules and doing unexpected shit, but that’s exactly what human genius has always been about. The difference is, AI is just playing probability games with language, like a really sophisticated drunk at a bar who’s good at finishing other people’s sentences.
Real human genius? That’s more like that guy who walks into the bar and tells you a story so strange and beautiful it makes you forget about your ex-wife, your dead-end job, and the fact that you haven’t written anything good in weeks. It’s the kind of thing that makes you put down your drink and think, “Holy shit, I’ve never heard anything like that before.”
And the real kicker? We’re so busy being cynical about everything, we’ve forgotten how to recognize that kind of magic when it happens. We’re like those ancient Athenians who decided Socrates was dangerous because he asked too many questions. (Though to be fair, I’ve been kicked out of plenty of bars for the same reason.)
Look, I’m not saying we should start worshipping every schmuck who claims they’re touched by divine inspiration. God knows I’ve met enough of those types at tech conferences, usually trying to sell me on their blockchain-based social media platform for pets. But maybe we need to admit that human creativity is weirder and wilder than our fancy algorithms can handle.
Here’s what I think, and yeah, this might be the bourbon talking: We’re not in danger of AI replacing human creativity. We’re in danger of forgetting what human creativity actually looks like. We’ve spent so much time convincing ourselves we’re nothing but biological computers that we can’t handle the idea that we might be something messier, stranger, and more interesting.
So here’s to the weirdos, the ones who don’t fit the algorithm, the ones who break the rules not because they’re trying to disrupt the market but because they can’t help themselves. They’re the ones who might just save us from ourselves.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need another drink. This kind of optimism makes me nervous.
[Posted at 3:47 AM by Henry Chinaski, who still writes everything longhand before typing it up, because some habits die harder than others.]