Capitalism, Talent, Generative AI, and the death of the polymath

I have been very bad about routinely writing posts on my blog; however, I have been filled with much anger and despair lately regarding some interconnected topics that I need to get my thoughts out about.

I recently had a (paraphrased) conversation at one of my jobs, doing live sound support for a church service. I was speaking to a woman about the church's music director, who had been stressed out that day. "She's so talented," the woman said. "It's amazing how she can do all that." I told her, "I went to music school, and I don't really think there's such thing as talent, only time. With enough practice you could do it too."

She politely rejected this, saying, "No, I used to play the piano, but no amount of practice would make me like [the music director]." I asked if she was sure. She said that the discouragement from her brother as a kid certainly didn't help. I apologized, and shrugged. "I think you could do it." She smiled uncomfortably, and the conversation ended.

I've believed for a long time now that I think the idea of "talent" as a have/have-not distribution of giftedness is unproductive at best and toxic at worst. I spent my whole life being told I was talented, gifted, what have you, but truly the only gift I think I had was the belief that those things were true, and above-average pattern recognition. Of course it's been talked to death as my generation has reached adulthood that such a belief is deeply damaging to one's concept of themselves and self-esteem.

But just like how the failure to live up to expectations can be deeply discouraging, so too is the self-imposed belief many people put on themselves: "Oh, I'm not talented. Not like [insert "gifted" person]." I think this is a dogma many people adapt in order to give themselves permission not to try.

Similarly, I think there's a very bizarre and historically recent phenomena of hyper-specialization, impacted a lot by the demands of our capitalist society to Be Good At One Thing So You Can Make Money And Have A Stable Life. Go to college and get a specialized education in One Thing, so that you're qualified for your One Field. This is certainly less of the case in artistic circles as there's an emphasis on the fact that you will be desperate for work and you need to be able to do a lot of different things to make ends meet, but this sentiment is not necessarily ubiquitous amongst artists or artistic subcategories. Why would you want to waste your limited time being a polymath when employers aren't looking for them? There is also a kind of academic segregation between the arts, the sciences, and the humanities, accentuated by friendly or less-than-friendly rivalries and stereotypes.

So then, it is actually materially and socially disincentivized in our culture to be good at more than one thing, which is very perplexing to me. I am starting to think that a lot of people subconsciously believe they're only able to do one thing, because our society is mostly structured around people doing one thing.

Enter: generative AI. Chat GPT, OpenAI, Claude, Google Search AI, Meta AI, Midjourney, DeepSeek, Grok... There has been an explosion of generative AI (henceforth "AI") integrated into every major search engine and social media platform. Students are using it for their homework. People are using it to write emails, blogs, even obituaries, or generate photos of themselves as cartoon characters. They're even using it for companionship, advice, and therapy.

Frankly, I find it nauseating. It's a solution without a problem, a set of amorphous jingling keys for the 21st-century corporate drone. Its environmental impacts outweigh the benefits so steeply because there are almost no real benefits. Gallons of fresh water used to cool data centers pumping out pollution and poisoning the largest collection of information in existence, and for what? So you can talk to a robot that tells you what you want to hear?

But my point isn't that AI is bad. My thesis is that AI is enabling people who believe they're not "talented enough". People who only want to put their time and effort into their One Thing. Why should I have to put effort into writing this letter? Why should I have to design my own album art? Why should I have to take my own photos? Why should I record my own song? There's a machine who will do it better than I can.

I wholeheartedly, with every fibre of my being, reject this. You can do better than a robot! Nobody wants to try. Nobody wants to be a little bad at something at first. "I can only draw a stick figure," you say. Then draw it! And draw it again, and again, and again, every day for a year, and look up a video of someone else drawing a stick figure and study their techniques, and ask the people around you to critique your stick figures, and then eventually you could probably draw something other than a stick figure!

But nobody wants to try, because they're not "talented". They're not immediately perfect at a new skill. They will point to someone who has tried, and has put in the time and practice, and say "I'm not talented like [artist]. No matter how much time I would put into it, I just couldn't do it like them."

To which I say: HOW DO YOU KNOW? You haven't put the time in!

Nobody is born talented, apropos of nothing. What they are born with is a passion. A dedication. Any slightly uneven distribution of skill or ability is not significant enough to justify a lack of effort on your part. If you've been told you can't do something, you've been lied to.

And so, now we live in a world where musicians generate their album art, and animators generate their voice acting, and programmers generate their music, and so on, in and endless cycle of backstabbing. It's such an utter unwillingness to engage in a discipline other than ones' own. It breaks my heart. I'm coming of age as an artist in a community of people I can't trust the work of at first glance without wondering if some part of it isn't real. I want to shout, "You can do it! You can learn to do everything you want to do!" But until something fundamental changes, I will be shouting at a wall.

If you're going to keep using generative AI, at least be honest with yourself. You are perfectly capable of all the writing, research, art, music, coding, and whatever else you ask of it. You just don't care enough about your creativity and your humanity to try.