Looking back at the first iteration of the Creativity, AI and Labor reading group

Books

In September 2024 I launched my working group on Creative Labor, AI and Democracy (CLAID) at the Digital Democracies Institute. The first activity of the group was to organize a reading group on creativity and AI. Together with Pranjali J. Mann, I organized four sessions focused on, ghess what, creativity, AI, and labor. In December, we had the honor of being joined by Italian scholar Tiziana Terranova, who discussed immaterial labor, AI, and automation with us. As a devoted reader of Autonomist literature, it was a true privilege to have her insights during our discussions. For those who were not able to join, below is a summary of what we did.

September: On getting started 

Readings:

In the first week, we read the introduction to Andreas Reckwitz’s book “The Invention of Creativity” and an article from hip-hop scholar and artist Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo. These readings provided context for generative AI models within the broader history of creative work and introduce some of the concerns related to their use. We looked at various mutative presences of creativity in the field of design and architecture and its connection to the culture of newness. Moving from the romantic vision of the artist as the archetype of a creative person (the “imaginative” inventor) all the way to present-day tech entrepreneurship the “creative” programmer and “artist” entrepreneur, we problematized creativity as the construction of the creative subject. We also discussed creativity as a skill and organizing principle, especially in a scene where deskilling, soft control, and precarity are the norm. Briefly touching on what it means to be recognized as creative— novelty and uniqueness— we turned to Week 2 readings on conceptualizing creativity. 

October: Creativity? Defining the concept 

Readings:

  • Simon, H. A. (1981). Understanding Creativity. In J. C. Gowan, J. Khatena, & E. P. Torrance (Eds.), Creativity: Its Educational Implications (pp. 252–259). Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company. 
  • Celis Bueno, C., Chow, P.-S., & Popowicz, A. (2024). Not “what”, but “where is creativity?”: Towards a relational-materialist approach to generative AI. AI & SOCIETY. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-024-01921-3

Simon attempted to explain creativity. But he failed. So, we had a productive discussion that AI is fancy problem solver, in the fancy terms of a calculator. We attempted to trace different conceptions of creativity in the history of the term “AI” (beyond the n-, g-, p- creativities). We patted our backs as we connected the dots between the industrialization of thought, rationality, emotions and creativity. Bueno et al. helped us think through how AI reinforces the dichotomy of culture (culture as everyday life) vs Culture (which prioritizes the production of “artifacts”). This reading also helped us wonder and circle around the idea that it is hard to define creativity as a “thing,” “thought,” or action. We, instead, landed on understanding that creativity is not an inherent human quality or skill but a form of mediation and re-mediation between practices, artifacts and arrangements of the socio-technical. Hence, we turn to post-humanism to seek answers.  

November: Posthuman Creativity 

Readings:  

  • Henriksen, D., Creely, E., & Mehta, R. (2022). Rethinking the Politics of Creativity: Posthumanism, Indigeneity, and Creativity Beyond the Western Anthropocene. Qualitative Inquiry, 28(5), 465–475. https://doi.org/10.1177/10778004211065813
  • Nakamura, L. (2014). Indigenous Circuits: Navajo Women and the Racialization of Early Electronic Manufacture. American Quarterly, 66(4), 919–941. https://doi.org/10.1353/aq.2014.0070

This week, we looked at post-human approaches to dealing with questions of creativity and distributed agency. Once again, our first reading failed us. The authors tried hard not to conflate posthumanism and poststructuralism, including Indigenous AI, but their attempt remained limited. We learnt how to (more so, how not to) conduct robust literature reviews and problems that come with interdisciplinary research. We spent some time on Byrd (2011) and Barad (2003, 2007), mainly to sit and pause with intra-action. Nonetheless, Nakamura saved the day. She helped us deal with the fetishization of creative labor. We talked about ongoing work of people in the room, we tended to the tension between mundane work and monotony as “rewarding” because of conceived notions of “modern” and technical/ digital work, and its exploitive nature. We also tended to the amnesia offered to concepts of alienation and sovereignty in the pipeline of creative work, specifically the power move of denying the specificity of their labor to Navajo women.  

December: Automation, labor and creativity, feat. Tiziana Terranova

  • Jarrett, K. (2015). “Sexts from Marxists and Other Stories from Digital Media’s Social Factory.” In Feminism, Labour and Digital Media, 1st ed., 27–51. United Kingdom: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315720111-
  • Terranova, T. (2019). Red Stack Attack! Algorithms, Capital and the Automation of the Common. In Mackay R. & Avanessian, A. (eds. ) #Accelerate# the accelerationist reader. Urbanomic  

Jarrett’s reading prompted us to revisit autonomist approaches to digital production and cultural production. Most importantly, we were honoured to have Tiziana Terranova and Wendy be part of the discussion about questions of labor in the creative industry, which are central to the algorithmic nature of creative production. We began by discussing the materiality of AI models, their energy consumption and environmental impacts. We discussed AI as a form of fixed capital and explored the implications of algorithms in relation to freedom, to the role of humans in AI, to the re-centralization of energy and resources imposed by AI models. By challenging us to view algorithms as something beyond just fixed capital, she invited us to reconsider our relationship with AI, moving away from the established master-slave framework. The conversation with Tiziana was a fantastic way to say goodbye to the 2024 CLAID reading group.  

If you are more of a visual person, you can find the Miro map with our notes here

If you want to access the readings or explore what we have read behind the scenes in preparation for the reading group, you can join the Zotero library here

The plan for 2025

The reading group will resume on January 28th at 9:30 AM and will run until 11:00 AM PST. We plan to meet monthly from January to April. As always, you are welcome to join one, some, or all of the meetings. If you ant more info about joining, either in person or remotely, contact me here.

Photo credits: Min An

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