Intuition in the Age of AI
As the multi-talented Kae Tempest writes in their book On Connection, “Life as we know it is entirely unreal, entirely unhuman. We have lost each other under this selfie system of hyper connection.”
We are living in a world of ever-increasing data, with our attention captured by algorithms we are powerless against, leaving us prone to the anxiety they generate. This era of hyper-connection has left us more disconnected from each other than ever before, and more disconnected from our own intuition. The 3As—algorithms, analytics and AI—might dominate our present, but they won’t create the future we want to inhabit. We need to find ways to reclaim our attention, and our confidence to make decisions that are rooted in human creativity and connection rather than allow our identities, brands or organisations be shaped by algorithms and automation.
The best ideas tend to be the ones that come from the heart, not the head, and certainly not from the screen. Digital distractions are everywhere, both on the macro and micro level, and the first step in reclaiming our attention is to attend to ourselves, to notice what is affecting us, because what is affecting us is also affecting our customers.
In his book, Filter World (2024), New Yorker staff writer Kyle Chayka connects the rise of algorithmic feeds to a flattening of global culture. He argues that we need to pursue a deeper sense of identity and a more enduring taste, that we need to stick with what we like for longer, not move through trends so quickly that we lose a sense of how to define ourselves. He believes that human curation is one way of doing this, although arguably the word ‘curation’ has been so overused it is in danger of losing all meaning. Chayka insists that the true meaning of curation is arranging culture in meaningful ways, making meaning by juxtaposing things. And meaning is what creates value in culture.
At the heart of curation and culture is, of course, creativity. And at a time of unprecedented global anxiety and unrest, we don’t need old ideas repackaged by the 3As, we need to think differently—the discovery of new ideas, new worlds and better communities. This requires originality, diversity of perspective, and new juxtapositions that have the power to create new stories. It requires creativity.Understanding and reminding ourselves what true creativity is, and the importance of the creative process, will become more and more crucial to how we work and how we run our organisations, and it can help us navigate the future more clearly and with greater confidence. Creativity is the defining trait of our species, and its ultimate goal is self-understanding—who we are, how we want to be, and what is our destiny. Carl Jung believed that the creative imagination is the only immediate reality, and therefore the role of creative individuals is to reveal what is lying dormant in the unconscious. In the 1960s, conceptual artist Joseph Beuys shocked the art world when he claimed ‘everyone is an artist’—and the sentiment is worth revisiting today. In many ways, everyone is a creator, creativity is something available to all of us. By simply being in the world we are creating our experience of reality and composing the world we see. From moment to moment, we use our senses to gather information, to perceive, filter and collect data (a process the 3As are modelled on), and we curate an experience for ourselves and each other based on this information. We literally create the world—and create possibilities for the world—simply by being in it.
While the 3As can model and accelerate this basic process of human information-gathering, there is something we do that those tools can’t. Humans sometimes gather data through the five senses, but at other times thoughts and feelings just occur to us, channelled through a higher frequency—a sixth sense that we might call intuition, imagination, and intention. These 3Is are hard to quantify, distinctly human and difficult to replicate. They require space, attention, and openness—and above all, time. In an increasingly fast world, this lack of speed on the human frequency is why more and more of us turn to algorithms, analytics, and AI. In his book, New Dark Age (2018), James Bridles writes, “Technology can be a guide and helpmate in our thinking but computers are not there to give us answers, but are tools for asking questions”. He explains that the greatest carrier wave of progress for the last few centuries has been the central idea of The Enlightenment itself, that more knowledge and more information will lead to better decisions. Today we find ourselves connected to vast repositories of knowledge, and yet we have not learned to think. Computation replaces conscious thought and we start to think more and more like the machine, or we do not think at all. If we become capable of thinking in new ways, then we are also capable of rethinking the world and understanding how to live differently within it. But how do we reclaim our human connection to thinking and feeling? James Bridle’s advice is to “go after experience rather than knowledge.”
Thinking about experience reminds us of the importance of physical space, places where we can come together, and when we get there, something else might happen: a new conversation, or encounter, or even the start of a new movement. A sense that anything could happen in the moment. A great example of this is Bold Tendencies, a not-for-profit arts organisation located in a multi-story carpark in Peckham. The small team there deliver hugely ambitious annual artistic programmes which each bring to life a major theme relevant to how we think and feel now. Each year, a new generation of voices are invited to respond to this theme, alongside acclaimed international artists in visual art, music, dance, opera, poetry and readings. This allows for multiple entry points for the public, artists and audiences, whilst placing the work in conversation with wider cultural happenings and urgent societal conversations.
Bold Tendencies’ summer programme for 2024 is based on the theme of Communion. Their introductory statement reads “When we speak of communion, we address a world not of deities but social relations. From spiritual sacraments to the fanfare of political marches, the blissed-out rapture of dancefloors to the solemn intimacy of prayer; from practices of shared land tenure to radical platforms of open-source software, grand ceremonial mysticism to humdrum workplace rituals. History shows that at its heart society has long been reproduced through acts of daily communion. Together they articulate a world held in common. Upheld through principles of connection, reverence, transition and memorial.” Communion is what happens when we come together in shared experience, it’s another word for human connection.
Nowadays brands live in a wide variety of places and spaces—corporate environments, digital ecosystems, retail spaces, product, and in the behaviours and actions of leaders and employers. Most importantly, brands live and breathe in the hearts and minds of their customers—citizens, human beings who think, feel and respond to the experiences around them.
As design company Turner Duckworth point out in their book, I Love it. What is it? (2024), “the language associated with instinct often references the human body and its sensation—doing what feels right, listening to your heart, gut feeling, human nature, feeling it in your bones.” To be creative, or to live a creative life, is really to practice paying attention. It is the skill of tuning in, of being and noticing. The more we practice this attention, the more sensitive we become to these frequencies, and the more subtle the notes we perceive. We begin to notice what feelings arise, and where they might lead.
The 3Is help us identify patterns and explore new connections, enabling us to approach a problem or challenge from a new perspective and find creative solutions. Often, we are not entirely aware of why certain things make sense until much later, but we often just feel that they do. In recent years, organisations have started to recognise the importance of emotional intelligence and empathy as crucial leadership skills. The next stage is to recognise that a well-developed sense of intuition and instinct are key to creative decision making. In an experienced leader, a sharpened and honed instinct could be an organisation’s most valuable resource. For a new vision of the future to emerge, we must attend to experience, to connection, and cultivate our ability to appreciate rather than just solve the way the 3As do. We must open ourselves to the radical potential of human creativity in all its forms, even the ones we don’t quite understand.
