What is innovation without effort and perseverance?

Creative expression has conventionally necessitated labor — hours spent gazing at the unfilled page, crumpled drafts discarded in the bin. Yet through years or decades of committed effort, one could attain proficiency and extract significance from one’s achievements. Generative AI is set to alter this dynamic. Can we find value in art created with minimal effort? 

The Gazette consulted philosophers and psychiatrists regarding the significance of struggle itself — and what we forfeit if an easier path exists. Their insights have been modified for brevity and clarity. 

---

Different action philosophers hold varying perspectives on the essence of effort, and individuals will disagree about the significance of how diligently one tried and how worthy they are of the final outcomes. 

Some argue — though this isn’t my stance — that if someone is inherently talented at something, such as being a virtuoso violinist, then the mere fact that the individual is not exerting themselves becomes part of what’s so remarkable. Those with this viewpoint are less likely to be concerned about not trying their utmost as a limitation on an achievement. 

This is not my opinion. I value hard work. I believe there are countless situations in which it seems evident that the resources someone allocates towards achieving a goal contribute positively to their reputation and make the result more reflective of the individual. When I refer to resources, I mean obvious factors like time and finances, but I also consider the less tangible and harder-to-measure aspects like mental or emotional reserves. 

However, there are contexts where the outcome’s quality is of primary importance: What counts is that you achieve results and the output fulfills a purpose, and it’s less critical that it reflects exceptionally on you. Those are instances where outsourcing works well. Yet there are other domains in which I desire the work to be a testament to my efforts. I’m not merely concerned that the paper is proficient or accurate: It matters to me that I authored it. 

I’d like to offer a single caveat. There are circumstances where it doesn’t seem justifiable to exert additional effort. It’s not that effort is a goal in itself, regardless of the merit of the objective you’re aiming to accomplish. It’s akin to struggling hard but ineffectively: I squander my resources by unnecessarily directing them towards a misguided endeavor. The challenging issue we, as finite beings, face is the one of resource management. Certain types of outsourcing are sensible in context since they release resources we can utilize more effectively elsewhere. We must recognize that we may not be entitled to as much credit for certain results. 

---

I frequently engage with chatbots to assess their current capabilities. Anthropic’s Claude is my preferred choice. I’ve come to the realization that presently, Claude holds co-author status. At the highest tier of philosophical exploration, you can present intricate lines of reasoning and request commentary from Claude, and Claude can deliver. The traditional process of writing books as we have known it is becoming less relevant. Anyone aiming to write a book will produce a far superior work and do so much more rapidly with an AI co-author. It’s a truly extraordinary situation. 

However, I intentionally selected the term ‘co-author.’ You’re not relegating the labor elsewhere; there’s simply more collaboration involved. We are certainly not at a point where you can just accept everything Claude composes at face value; a human presence is still needed to evaluate it. 

Individuals of my generation, equipped with my educational background, are ideally suited to leverage this technology. We’ve acquired our knowledge without the assistance of AI. I understand how to interpret a text independently, I know how to conduct research. Nonetheless, I’m concerned that 50 years from now, we’ll be left with individuals who have only learned with these tools available, making it increasingly difficult to encourage people to pursue education, both to assess
“““html

what the gadgets are accomplishing and also to align with concepts of human excellence.

Certain individuals naturally value the pursuit of abilities for their own sake. However, the majority tend to adopt a more relaxed stance. We must inspire upcoming generations to uphold the standard of human excellence that earlier generations have rendered feasible, despite the temptation to delegate it. We should seek methods of emphasizing a distinctly human existence, sustaining criteria of distinctly human superiority, purely because they represent the benchmarks of distinctly human excellence.

---

Almost all primary contenders concur that a typical fulfilling life for an individual will entail a struggle for success. It will necessitate effort toward a specific objective. However, the theories differ regarding the rationale behind this.

Perhaps exertion is beneficial for us since it’s gratifying to reach a conclusion. Certain theories suggest that attaining what you desire is what’s beneficial. Others approach the matter even more directly: They argue that, regardless of how it feels at the end, the experience of sacrifice followed by success, of engaging in actual work that yields results, is advantageous for us.

However, this technology renders it more plausible to separate the effort from the result. If the sole aspect that counts for well-being is feeling positive, then perhaps what we truly need are seamless dopamine boosts. You can interact with your romance bot just as effortlessly as you can access gambling and adult entertainment sites. You can read any fiction you wish by prompting the chatbot, without engaging in any intellectual effort to explore and discover independently. There’s a significant reason these technologies illuminate why philosophical inquiry into well-being could hold profound importance.

It’s quite positive to contemplate how AI could enhance our productivity in certain specific scenarios. There are various applications that raise no concerns for me, such as solving protein folding or conducting targeted drug research. All of that is remarkable. Yet I do harbor reservations about the broader applications.

If you hear the technologists themselves, they speak of a vast social experiment whereby traditional ways of organizing our lives, established over hundreds of years, are drastically overturned. If this is indeed the case, then we must closely observe the typical human reactions to such changes. It’s essential to avoid significantly disturbing what seems to form a vital component of ordinary human experience.

We should return to fundamentals. The entire endeavor must concentrate on what promotes human flourishing. Perhaps we’re better off drafting our own emails. Maybe we’re better off accepting marginally less optimal solutions across various domains, as long as we preserve the core elements of typical human engagement.

---

In the exploration of adult development, individuals often discuss the pride associated with their accomplishments. While some felt pride in winning accolades or becoming a CEO—those achievements are indeed commendable—the enduring realization was, “I contributed good work, it mattered to me, and it was significant to others.”

I believe there exists a form of pride in hard work, in being diligent. It represents a certain ethos. Certainly, there are individuals who are pleased to do the bare minimum. Perhaps not many of those individuals are drawn to institutions like Harvard; it tends to be a self-selecting cohort. Yet, what holds significance for many of us is that sense of, “I improved at this. I learned to excel.” There’s a distinct satisfaction attached to that.

I utilize AI occasionally. I input some writing into AI and ask, “Enhance this,” and it does. Following that, I feel uneasy. It performed in mere seconds what might have consumed me an hour. My goodness, I dedicated years to refining my writing abilities. I attended public school in Des Moines, Iowa, where we had to produce a weekly essay. I labored over those assignments, and my skills improved. If, at 12, I had been told I could avoid this, I would have surely responded, “Fantastic!” Yet now, I’m grateful for having been compelled to do it.

Apart from the pride in skill cultivation, it’s not solely about writing; it’s about thinking. Does the initial part of this sentence logically connect to the latter? It serves as a means of sharpening our capacity to think, not merely to organize words. What if we no longer have to engage in that mental exercise?

I practice Zen, which significantly emphasizes the importance of each moment. How do you wish to spend your moments? I could be enjoying retirement at this point. I don’t need to continue working. Yet, I work because I derive genuine joy from the tasks we undertake. I believe there is intrinsic satisfaction to be found in the journey, not just the end point.

“`