A thought hit me the other day like standing too close to an electrical storm, narrowly avoiding the lightning but absorbing the full brunt of the thunder.

AI needs us a lot more than we need it.

What set this epiphany off was a recent AI recreation of one of The Matrix fight scenes. The two main characters, Neo and Agent Smith, are kung fu fighting in a white room that transforms mid-pummeling. Impressive? Yes. Was there a reason for the room suddenly shifting from white to a transcendental, meditative bamboo background? No. It actually felt weird and out of sync with the story. It also felt borrowed from the kung fu movie genre simply because they were fighting using kung fu. There was no real narrative reason for the shift, so it did not fit within the original film’s context.

That brings me to the question. Would we even be seeing a recreation of this movie had it not been created in the first place? No. We would not.

One of the zealous headlines that first grabbed my attention declared that “Hollywood is cooked” and “Movie making is now dead.” As negative and gross as those headlines are, there is a reason people use them. They make you pay attention. And it worked.

But in reality, I am confident that Hollywood studios likely have far more advanced versions of AI than we can access. Money buys privilege. Yes, it is a marvel that we as everyday users can generate that quality of scene on a desktop computer. But I would argue that the physics are still slightly off. It still looks artificial. Neat? Absolutely. Groundbreaking? Not yet.

Maybe one day soon it will look completely real. I am not sure that even matters.

Creative people will still be the ones who create. They are driven by something most non-artistic people do not fully comprehend. They are impulsively compelled to make stories, art, music, and the written word, not simply because they have the talent, but because they feel the need. For them, it is an obsession.

Having the sudden ability to produce artwork that looks like Picasso does not make you Picasso. It makes you someone impersonating Picasso electronically. And as proud as you may feel about the hour it took to generate that “work,” it will never equal the untold hours it took for the real Picasso to produce not just one painting, but an entire lifetime of work.

So yes. AI needs us.

And for certain things such as repetitive tasks, pattern recognition, analyzing enormous amounts of data, and assisting us in daily life, we will likely grow to need it too. The world continues to accelerate and no one seems willing to take their foot off the pedal.

Am I against AI? Not really.

There are ways it will help all of us in our professions and at home. Imagine AI as a care assistant for someone facing physical or mental challenges, anticipating needs based on a learned routine. That could be incredibly helpful. It has not cured cancer yet, but it has already recognized patterns that represent real breakthroughs toward curing it someday. It will continue to excel at finding subtle and complex patterns across enormous datasets, something that is nearly impossible for humans to do alone. And it is very good at repetitive tasks, which most humans hate.

So yes, it is here to stay.

Maybe it even helps solve the daycare issue for working parents. That is, if you trust it with your kids.Trust may be the ultimate deciding factor.

Care to watch I, Robot for the 737th time with me?

Randall Hooker
ECD | Founder
Atomico Creative