This piece was featured on Sir John Hegarty's The Business of Creativity.
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This week, we’re excited to feature an opinion piece by guest contributor Ben Jenkins. Ben has spent 25 years studying humans and creativity for agencies including BBH, Droga5 and Ogilvy, as well as clients ranging from MoMA to the UK government.
For the past decade, as founder of Okay Human , he has helped brands unlock new creative avenues by activating the instinctive, irrational right brains of humans.
For 8 years we've quietly studied how to unleash human creativity. And we found that humans will reanimate & emote profoundly even around the dullest topics when appropriately stimulated.
The AI revolution has accelerated our exploration into computer and human minds. ‘The Emergent Mind’ by Gaurav Suri and James McClelland describes how AI only entered its growth spurt when it borrowed from humans. New research into 'emergent thinking' exposes how the human mind is even more non-linear than AI can ever be. According to Suri “we have as many ways of getting to a thought as there are atoms in the universe.” Idea formation is truly embodied and sensorial, involving discomfort, emotion, imagery and even trauma.
To trigger creative ideas, human neurons must be warmed up through true emotion. It turns out emotions aren’t an inconvenient sideshow; they are instrumental in serious work. In fact, there is nothing more rational than harnessing emotion. The rationalists agree: emotion makes creativity happen!
It turns out emotions aren’t an inconvenient sideshow; they are instrumental in serious work.
For the price of a sandwich it can solve complex problems like meaning, love and trust - problems an AI might fail to solve even while consuming the energy of a village. Machines may have mastered the complicated left-brain problems, but we must approach the numinous tasks by reawakening the fleshy machines we walk around in. Here are a few ways to do this:
Embrace the power of ignorance. Not having an answer is not a weakness. Notice the liberating feeling when you say ‘I don’t know.’
Sit still. Most people abandon ideas too early, mistaking discomfort for dead ends. Reflection is where meaning forms.
Feel for the friction. Pay attention to what feels off. When technology dispatches every problem, everything becomes smooth, sanded, and strangely empty. Friction brings you back to something real.
Look for lies and have fun with them. We cling to what feels true because it gives us certainty, but certainty shuts things down. Instead, put yourself into a state of play chasing down what might not be true. There’s always something underneath the first answer. And lie hunting is not only more fun, but it reveals more lies and truths on the journey.
Don’t fetishize the ‘finished’. Finished thinking is often the least interesting kind. Ideas that are still forming have more life in them.
Engage AI as a trickster. Don’t give up your agency to the machine. Give it the job of reanimating you. It should start fires and upend you to awaken your play instinct. Humans arrive at the most innovative places; AI simply gets you into a heightened state of creative receptivity.
You can read more like this here.