Partly in response to the existential implications of AI, I have been pondering aspects of what humans are good at recently, and then how our society, institutions and infrastructure need to facilitate these. In essence, getting humans to do repetitive, formulaic work is done for, AI will do that (whether we think that’s good or not is probably not going to stop it happening). Maybe that’s ok, we were forcing people to become more uniform in their outputs and that isn’t playing to our strengths. Humans are messy, inefficient, unpredictable and often wrong. Well, at least this human is. But most of what we really value comes from this process (which is not to underestimate the need for rigour, hard work and practice). I think this boils down to some form of ‘constrained freedom’. Absolute freedom can be overwhelming, but we often see the bets artistic and creative endeavours arising within some form of constraint – compare your favourite musical artist’s output when they were up against early limitations to when they could indulge themselves in endless studio time and guests. Or even, remember how well we used to craft tweets when we only had 140 characters? That was art. On this aspect of creative freedom then I’ve encountered two resources recently that set me thinking. The first was a book on shedworking. It’s a middle class fantasy I know, but I love the idea of a snug, outdoor space. In the book lots of people who write, run small businesses or create art talk about the importance of this separate space, separated from the house and sometimes offline also. It becomes a space devoted to the practice they pursue there, and usually in a nice garden setting. The idea of a domain of one’s own takes some of this notion for the digital space. But I wondered what it would mean from an administrative, educational perspective? I don’t mean providing academics with funky sheds (although I am up for that), but rather cognitively, how do we facilitate this thinking, creative space that is slightly remote from the institution, and yet still within reaching distance? It’s important that the shed is not a car drive away I think, you get to it via a short commute across your garden. It still feels part of home, but is distinct. Academics used to have more private research time but this has been encroached upon by targets, administrative duties, research funding needs, etc. And it doesn’t just apply to academics, all university staff need this kind of space to freely explore aspects that will often, not result in anything productive, but will occasionally produce magic. Ours to destroy Which brings me on to my second resource. I recently watched I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, the film about Wilco producing their historic album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Famously they made the album, handed it over to the record company (Warners), who gave them confused looks and passed on it, releasing them from contract and giving them the album to take elsewhere. They eventually got it released by another record company (who ironically turned out to be a subsidiary of Warners, meaning the company paid for the album twice). It went on to become one of the most influential albums of the 2000s. All that is a fun tale of sticking it to the man and artistic integrity, but what struck me most was early on in the film, the band are deconstructing and experimenting with their songs. It was this layer of experimentation that both confused the record company and helped make the album so successful. There are some straightforward beautiful songs on YHF such as Jesus, Etc, but often the song emerges from beneath distortion and fracture and then the process feels more like you the listener have helped uncover it (I Am Trying To Break Your Heart is a good example). This was intentional, and during tis process Jeff Tweedy comments that “There’s no reason not to destroy it, we made it. It’s ours to destroy and that’s liberating and exciting”. This seems to me the essence of some form of creative freedom and the type of thing AI isn’t very good at. Like the shedworking example, it also set me thinking about what does the equivalent of “ours to destroy” look like in educational terms? Should we allow educators to have one course that they completely mess with? That is unmade from the convention? Would students love or hate this? Do we have the infrastructure that would even allow that? Think of all the quality frameworks, commercial pressure, peer review, etc and you’d have to say no, at least in the UK. But if this process of unmaking is what drives forward creativity then maybe we need to allow that kind of space. I think I’m mashing together two subjects here that don’t really mix, but as the lyrics to Jesus, Etc puts it “you can combine anything you want”. Anyway, all together now – “I am an America aquarium drinker…”