Human Creativity in the AIGC Era

Recent advances in artificial intelligence raise profound questions for humanity. Is the artificial intelligence-generated content (AIGC) technology merely a tool? Or is AIGC developing a level of creativity comparable to that of human beings? This essay explores the challenges and opportunities that AIGC technology brings to creativity, industry, and the ways of living of people around the world. These questions involve scale, authenticity, choice, and wisdom. Further, this essay addresses the core capabilities of future creative workers in the era of AIGC. The author believes that the ability to create meaning—meaning making—is and will remain a distinctive strength of human creativity in the AIGC era. To build on this strength, human beings must focus on six key areas: human-centered values, paradigmatic innovation, holistic experiences, cultural awareness, situational connections, and narrative reasoning. The best outcome for the AIGC is to make machines more machine-like and humans more human. Achieving this goal requires a cultural renaissance. We must break through the limits of computational rationality with the brilliance of humanity.