I liked Rubin’s book “The Creative Act,” and generally agreed with it’s thrust, so this series of quotes from him about AI & creativity comes as not much of a surprise to me. But it still seems like this viewpoint is shocking and avant garde for most people, so including it here! From Business Insider (archived):

However, the finished work, or even the process of making something, is only a small part of what creativity is, Rubin said.

“The things that we make are the reminders that we’re creative. They’re just the output. The real creativity is the idea that allows this thing to be made,” Rubin said.

The record producer drew parallels between prompting AI and the storyboarding process used by filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock and Wes Anderson, who plan their films frame by frame before working with actors to execute their ideas.

“AI could be a great tool to assist in this mocking up, but it’s the prompt. The prompt is where the creativity is. The prompt is what Wes is using, and what Alfred Hitchcock is using, to tell the artist what to draw in each frame,” Rubin said.

“The creativity is there. It’s not in the drawing. It’s not in the finished movie,” he continued.

And a bit later:

Rubin then pointed to Andy Warhol’s screen-printed celebrity portraits, many of which involved collaborators.

“He [Warhol] said, ‘We’re going to use this shot of Marilyn, and we’re going to treat it in this way,’ and he prompted the people in the studio to screen print these things, and they’re not less Andy Warhol,” Rubin said.

He added that kind of collaboration was nothing new: Renaissance painters often worked with assistants, and modern musicians still rely on studio players to perform on recordings.

“The art’s always in the ideation. That’s where the art is. It’s not who put the paint on the canvas,” Rubin said.