AI and Creativity: The Myth I Keep Hearing (And Still Don't Believe)

Every morning, my email inbox is filled with articles about how AI is the perfect thought partner for writers. And every morning, I die a little more inside.

These are three AI use cases the industry seems to believe I should investigate. And these are my thoughts about those particular suggestions.

Use AI to Beat Back the Blinking Cursor

Every writer has dealt with the terror of the blank page. AI tools like Claude are sometimes pitched as the solution. When you don't know where to begin, turn things over to AI and then just edit what comes out.

This is a terrible idea.

AI tools are predictive models. They work by understanding what word typically follows another. It looks like a creative magic trick, but it's really basic math at work.

The first draft gives me an idea of what the article might become when it's been honed and refined. It's a way to get my best ideas out in the open, so I can sift through them and determine what's worth a polish.

If I turn this over to AI, I'll be polishing predictions based on popularity. The idea that I'll get anything that's creative or different from what's come before is crazy. I'll only get recycled ideas that sound like everyone else.

Use AI to Perform Deep Research

Good articles come from a core understanding of the material. The more you can determine the history of something, what others think about it, where it might go in the future, and who enjoys it, the more you can speak confidently through the unique content you create.

I like to dig deep while I'm in research mode, taking notes, grabbing links, and highlighting core concepts. I want my head to be full to bursting with all of the messy thoughts that surround a topic. And I like to go into all the rabbit holes and weird pockets of data along the way.

AI tools can summarize dense data in seconds, and some writers use them to create research reports they read from as they write. But AI also hallucinates, meaning you have to check each data point and citation to verify it. At that point, you're not saving time.

I also think this mode of research is less engaging. If I'm not finding the information myself and investigating it, I'm less likely to remember it and cite it accurately. Anything I write is likely to be thin, surface-level, and reproducible. That's far from creative.

I can (and do) use AI tools to help me find a very specific statistic or data point. It's a bit like a standard Google search on steroids. But turning over the whole process to AI? No way.

Use AI to Draft a Content Brief

I like to write from an outline, and people like me are encouraged to use AI tools for this step. Let the machine tell you where all the ideas will go, and the piece will automatically be more creative, right? (I think you can see where I'm going with this.)

An outline is an extended form of research, allowing me to pull all of the disparate threads I've discovered into one neat package. Sometimes, I discover thin points of understanding at this stage, which means I need to research a little more. And sometimes, I discover that something I thought was interesting has no place inside the final piece.

Outsourcing this step can lead to a thinning of understanding and a shallowing of the writing that comes from it. Those are true creativity killers.

Avoiding AI and Creativity Myths While Using the Tools

I embrace new technology, including AI, and I think there's a place for these tools in modern workflows. I've written about incorporating AI tools into my work on this blog many times.

But let's be honest. Using AI the way I am using it does absolutely nothing for my creativity. They increase my accuracy and technical specificity. But any creativity is my own. As it should be.