Why do I suggest that you do more seemingly useless things in the AI era?

01

Tools do not equal abilities.

I wonder if there are people like me who have had the illusion countless times that as long as we buy something, we can possess the ability, lifestyle, or state behind it.

For example, I often saw online that some people used iPads for hand - drawing. With their smart and flexible lines, they could create wonderful works. They could draw sketches anytime and anywhere, on high - speed trains, at airports, or on the grass in spring.

What an interesting way to record life! I also wanted to try it, so I bought an iPad, an Apple Pencil, and installed Procreate. Then I searched the whole network for nice brushes and tutorials. However, obviously, I couldn't draw anything nice with these tools. So, they were soon forgotten in a corner of my room and were only taken out when I ate instant noodles.

Another example is the popular DJI Pocket recently. The lives captured by people's lenses always seem so unrestrained, flamboyant, and full of freedom. I thought my life also needed such passion, so I placed an order without hesitation.

But after receiving the product, I found that the real key behind these wonderful videos was not the device, but time and freedom. Unfortunately, I didn't have such freedom, so the Pocket ended up gathering dust.

In today's era of prevalent consumerism, I've noticed that we are more and more likely to turn our expectations for ourselves and our lives into a form of consumer behavior. It seems that as long as we buy something, we can become the person we've always dreamed of being.

But this is obviously not right. Just as a netizen commented on a Pocket video: "Their lives are not wonderful because of DJI, but DJI just records this wonderfulness."

This is a cause - and - effect relationship. Unfortunately, we often ignore this relationship and even reverse it. Ultimately, tools do not equal abilities.

02

The same goes for AI. Having technology does not necessarily mean creating results.

As a writer, I often think about a question: In an era when AI can write an article in just a few minutes, what can we still do?

In a broad sense, AI can do almost everything. It can answer questions, write proposals, generate pictures, music, and videos. In today's technological narrative, a person can become almost omnipotent with the help of AI.

"Super - individual" is a new term that emerged with the development of AI. Since the beginning of 2023, this concept has been frequently mentioned in various scenarios. In the context of super - individuals, even a person with no experience can write novels, draw comics, compose music, and even produce a movie with the support of AI.

If you still have doubts, it doesn't matter. There are many self - media platforms that will tell you that this is a great opportunity to overtake others on a curve. For just 998 yuan, you can learn everything.

From this perspective, AI provides us with countless opportunities. Moreover, driven by the market, many people are willing to help you get rich.

However, even in this situation, I still feel confused when I get an AI tool. It's like when you pick up a pen to write but don't know what to write; when you turn on an iPad to draw but don't know what to draw; when you get a Pocket to shoot but don't know what to shoot...

We know that AI can generate pictures, videos, texts, music... We know that AI has unparalleled creativity, but we don't know what to create. It's like facing a wise man who knows everything but not being able to ask a useful question.

This is a deep sense of powerlessness .

03

I've thought about this question repeatedly and finally attributed this feeling of helplessness to my lack of imagination.

Imagination is the source of all creation. No matter how powerful your tools are, it's hard to achieve anything if you can't imagine the world you want to create. Just like many current AI products are still making minor improvements on traditional products and find it difficult to build a completely AI - native product.

But we have to admit that our imagination declines as we grow older.

The Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) is one of the most authoritative creativity assessment tools in the world. It proves that teenagers have richer imaginations than the elderly.

Countless artists and scientists in history have also proven this. They usually completed their most important works in their youth. For example, Mozart completed his Symphony No. 25 in G minor at the age of 17; Byron published Childe Harold's Pilgrimage at 24; Newton proposed the law of universal gravitation at 24... In fact, there aren't many examples of people achieving success late in life.

I can clearly feel that as I get older, I have fewer and fewer strange and novel ideas like I did in my youth. My understanding of things increasingly relies on past experience and has become more conventional and ordinary.

I still remember that when I was a child, on my way home from school, a cloud in the sky could trigger countless thoughts in my mind, and I could make up a story with a rich plot. When I was a sentimental middle - school student, I could write some quite spiritual words... But now, all these have been buried in years of work.

Some time ago, a friend shared a Douyin video with me. It was a young girl recording her internship days at a newspaper office. Her delicate and gentle words calmly told the restlessness and restiveness of youth, which attracted nearly 100,000 likes and thousands of comments.

After reading the content, I was attracted by one of the comments, which said: "One day, you'll find that you can no longer write delicate words. That's when you truly enter society. It's a kind of overwhelming heat that makes you dizzy, no matter the season. There's nothing you can do but immerse yourself in it."

I couldn't agree more. We are all born different, with infinite imagination and possibilities. But as days and years go by, we wear away all our spiritual qualities and finally become mediocre.

04

In the AI era, mediocrity is the last thing we need. AI will replace most ordinary jobs, while imagination will become increasingly important.

When materials are scarce, we need productivity. But when productivity is abundant enough, how to use this productivity becomes a problem. So, the AI era is an era that requires imagination!

By now, there have been many successful examples in the market thanks to AI.

For example, some people use AI to generate cheesy short dramas about kittens doing housework and claim to earn 500,000 yuan a month; some use AI to create videos about the daily life of primitive - man programmers, and each video can get thousands of likes; others use AI to generate strange "hallucination" videos and gain hundreds of thousands of fans...

Behind these cases, inspiration, creativity, and imagination, which were once difficult to measure, are becoming visibly more important.

05

Perhaps, it's more important to learn how to see the world again than to master AI tools.

Unfortunately, the imagination and creativity of most of us have been worn away in our daily lives. People gradually lose their curiosity about the world, their enthusiasm for life, and their inborn spirituality.

So, when we face AI, just like when we got an iPad, a camera, or a Pocket in the past, although the tools have been upgraded, we still can't create better works.

In the AI era, people's imagination remains the key to creation. If you don't change yourself, AI can't change you either. Fortunately, the decline of imagination is not irreversible. On the contrary, it is an ability that can be trained.

Neuroscience research shows that imagination involves multiple areas of the brain, such as the Default Mode Network (DMN) related to free association, scenario construction, and future thinking, or the executive control network related to conscious attention management. These areas still exist in the adult brain and do not naturally degenerate with age. The key lies in whether we use them.

There was a popular internet meme that said "If you don't use your talent for a long time, it will be taken away." It's probably the same idea.

For example, we are often amazed by the unique temperament of artists, which can be easily recognized from their dressing styles and mental states. Or, those freelancers, those who are unemployed but pursuing their ideals and passions, and those who are temporarily away from their workstations, all have completely different temperaments and mental states.

The reason they have unique temperaments is that they are truly experiencing life and constantly releasing their imagination.

However, in today's social life, we are too obsessed with what we can gain from everything. In this process, we focus on our immediate steps and forget to look up at the stars.

So, go out. Read some useless books, listen to the wind without a plan; feel the summer moon, talk to strangers; do some things without aiming for results or rewards.

Throughout our lives, we are not really looking for meaning, but rather regaining that curious look at the world.

Imagination is not a privilege of childhood, nor a gift for geniuses. It is a way of living, a choice. When you are willing to slow down, take a look, and think, you will find that the inspiration you thought had disappeared has just fallen into a temporary slumber .

This article is from the WeChat official account "Bounded UnKnown". Author: Shan Cha, Editor: Qian Jiang. Republished by 36Kr with permission.