After a recent animated-video contest, two shocking things happened. 

First, it was revealed that the winning animation was animated entirely by AI. Meaning, the AI beat the humans. 

Second, people were unhappy about it, so much so that they changed their minds about the animation. Turns out it wasn’t the best. Turns out it didn’t deserve to win. 

Think about how strange that is. They loved it when they thought a human made it. In other words, it was “objectively” the best animation in the contest. But the second they found out it was created by AI, suddenly it wasn’t so special anymore. 

This tells us a lot about what we, as humans, value. 

We value the artist’s consciousness. We value the human behind the work. We value the story.

There’s an implicit narrative in every piece of art. Consider a sculpture. Someone saw the raw block of marble – a living, breathing human being. They also saw something in their imagination: a vision of a desired end-state; an artistic ideal. And every single strike of the chisel was guided by their conscious, effortful intention toward that ideal. 

How much more interesting a story is that than “the algorithm spit it out”? 

This goes to show that we don’t value things because they are valuable; they are valuable because we value them. 

Meaning & value is not in the thing itself – meaning & value is in us. 

It also goes to show us that there’s a difference between ‘art’ and ‘output.’ Output is output. It’s cut-and-dry. It is what it is. And that’s all it is. Art is something more than the sum of its parts. And that’s because a human imbued it with their humanity. 

In a world where AI is increasingly creating more and more output and at higher quality, the entrepreneurs who win will be the entrepreneurs who create art instead of making output or who find unique ways to combine the two. 

There’s a simple recipe for success in the fourth industrial revolution. 

Step one: Find your art. 

Step two: Do more of it.