Who owns your thought patterns? For most readers, the answer to this should be reflexive and almost visceral. The way we think, how we approach problems, and our personal style are all at the core of what defines us as people. This article examines the relationship of technology, ownership, and the future of our own thought patterns. This topic is more nuanced than the many related articles on the battle for our attention, the tracking of our daily lives, or commercial attribution; it has everything to do with preserving the things that define our personalities.

People are creative by nature. At our core, each of us has a different way of solving problems, creating artwork, or writing. The way we approach challenges is based on many things, including our past experiences, interests, physical capabilities, and many others. Although it may not be the perfect definition, I’ve defined this quality as our thought process for the purpose of this article.

This article focuses on the impact of technology on our thought processes; specifically, the impact of digitization, the democratization of information, and the rise of AI in our creativity and critical thinking. I’m going to start with the incident triggering this article.

The Session

Figure 1. Prompt: “Make a drummer playing drums. Include someone recording the drummer with a tablet” (generated with Microsoft® Copilot™). This image is used to generate irony; there were no actual photographs of the session.

It was an odd request: “Can I make a video of you playing my song?” I knew my friend Ben had been making an album, and I was eager to help him out in any way I could. The whole session lasted about 10 minutes. He lifted an iPad® over my head while I played the song a couple of times, and then we parted ways.

He explained later that he had used the recording to manually program the music into his digital recording studio. It was a strange sensation to hear the music played back. It was obviously machine sounds, but it truly felt as if I had actually recorded the track.

But thinking back on this session, I wondered what my actual contribution had been to this project. He had done the tedious work of recording the session and programming each note. My bit was playing through the songs twice. It occurred to me that my contribution was my thought patterns.

Thought Patterns

One reason I like this example is because I think it clearly isolates the concept I’m talking about. The contribution of my thought patterns provided the song with more than notes in a program. Those thought patterns included countless hours in the practice room, years of interpreting music, and thoughtful selection of sound choices. It’s what we characterize with the words experience and expertise. It’s these same qualities that a painter puts into making a masterpiece, a writer might use to create a classic novel, or a lawyer might use to win a difficult case.

But more importantly, it demonstrates the relationship of technology to our thought patterns. The digital studio enabled them to be extracted, combined, and disseminated to the public. More broadly, as the world becomes increasingly digitized, thought patterns have become data fueling the generative AI at the center of the technological conversation. Once integrated, they become part of what I might term the global collective knowledge, and they are available to all.

Owning Thought Patterns

There are innumerable advantages to this global collective knowledge base, of course. Want to learn the best way to change an oxygen sensor on a 2016 Ford Explorer™ from the three best sources in seconds? However, it gets murkier from the perspective of people whose livelihood is their thought patterns.

I’m going to focus on the world of art for a moment, but this applies to any area where creativity or critical thinking is used. Let’s look at some example images I’ve generated. As we do, keep in mind the source of the thought patterns and their impact on the images.

Vincent van Gogh

Figure 2. Prompt: “Make me an image of a cat drinking tea in van Gogh style” (generated with Microsoft Copilot).

Our tea-cat is an interesting example (Figure 2). The cat-concept is likely a compilation of numerous online images. Drinking tea is a completely novel concept that the AI was able to generate. But the van Gogh style is unmistakable—the thought patterns have been copied from the master based on the statistical interpretation of his body of works. Even the master’s individual brush strokes are duplicated upon close inspection. His style is so well known and iconic that it has undoubtedly been copied countless times over the years.

Yayoi Kusama

But what if the artist is still active? By changing two words in the prompt, we can change the style to that of the great contemporary Japanese artist, Yayoi Kusama (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Prompt: “Make me an image of a cat drinking tea in Yayoi Kusama style” (generated with Microsoft Copilot).

I was able to add Kusama’s distinctive brightly polka-dotted style with a few simple keystrokes and about 30 seconds of processing time. I basically swapped out the thought patterns of the artists with a few keystrokes. More importantly, Kusama is a contemporary artist who is still active and making her living from her unique style and brand.

Gustav Klimt

Figure 4. The Kiss by Gustav Klimt (Google Art Project, Public Domain).

What is it that makes an artist famous, or even a great master? In The Kiss (Figure 4), we see the portrayal of a deeply personal moment viewed through the master’s eyes. He’s chosen these moments for specific reasons and has used his years of technique and experience to portray a very specific feeling. Klimt has shared something with us that’s deeply personal, and his style is used as a tool to produce that moment.

Figure 5. Prompt: “Make me a nitro funny car in the style of Gustav Klimt” (generated with Microsoft Copilot).

I chose the racing car in the AI image (Figure 5) as an example reductio ad absurdum. AI is basically making a statistical analysis of the visual patterns and overlaying that on a second concept. But it’s clearly lacking the emotional impact.

The point is that the reason we like these artists is because we’re seeing the world through their thought process, whether it’s the concentric circles of Gustav Klimt or the polka-dots of Yayoi Kusama. Each work is an idea or concept the artist is sharing with the viewer.

What’s at Stake: Critical Thinking and Creativity

Before we look at the impact of this dynamic, let’s take a closer look at critical thinking, creativity, and their relationship. In their article, The Relationship Between Critical and Creative Thinking, Baker, Rudd, and Pomreoy (2001) argue for a strong relationship between these two concepts. They argue that reasoning includes the following ten summarized traits:

• Independent thinking
• Intellectual empathy
• Courage
• Integrity
• Perseverance
• Intellectual curiosity
• Faith in reason
• Intellectual civility
• Intellectual responsibility

Likewise, creative thinking is described as a complex construct expressed through these five typologies:

• Expressive
• Productive
• Inventive
• Innovative
• Emergent

I’m hoping the relationship between the constructs on this list to the technology we’re using jumps out at you, the reader, as it did for me. These are the intellectual skills we’ve relied on technology to replace or that have fallen to the wayside in the ocean of information and online connections.

Impact on Creativity and Critical Thinking

As a long-time AI researcher and developer, I’m fully aware of the real and perceived risks of overreliance on AI and technology, which have been well covered elsewhere. But there are two particular aspects that are specific to thought patterns that I would like to discuss involving both the consumers of AI and the thought pattern producers.

First, from the consumer’s perspective, I believe we are ceding ground to the technology that will be very difficult to get back. Both critical thinking and creativity are like muscles that must be exercised. How many creative abilities might be lost?

Second, how might the producers react to having their thought patterns amalgamated into the global collective knowledge pool? Will they become less motivated to produce knowing that their innovative and unique thought process is available for anyone to use? If your individual style is a differentiator amongst your peers, will you be less likely to make it available to the world?

Imagine a world without our different thought processes, where each book written had exactly the same plot and each painting had the same topic. I recently ran across an article on the band, The Velvet Sundown, a completely AI-generated band, including the lyrics, music, and even the band promo shot. They had 1.4 million downloads until the public realized they were an artificial band.

Figure 6: Berklee Media Relations article on the AI controversy of The Velvet Sundown.

The creators undoubtedly lifted the sound, branding, and look of the band by compiling statistics from real bands, down to the choice of snare drum sound to the choice of clothing in the bio picture. It is interesting to me that this band was extremely popular until it was realized that the entire project was manufactured by AI.

Final Thoughts

I would like to reiterate that I do not count myself among the anti-AI people. I’ve worked on many AI projects to help boost the efficiency of software programs. And I do believe there is an aspect of AI that can be quite creative and unique (Figure 7).

Figure 7. Prompt: “Make me an image of a snail jousting with a knight” is an example of novel images using generative AI (generated with Microsoft Copilot).

But as we move forward on this journey together, I would encourage each of you to make sure to exercise your creative and critical thinking muscles and build experiences that encourage your users to do this as well.

In Part II of this article, I will be taking a deeper look at how to use AI to boost your creative and critical thinking processes and ways we can use this technology to grow.

Further Reading

Baker, Rudd, and Pomeroy. 2001. “Relationship Between Critical and Creative Thinking.” Journal of Southern Agricultural Education Research.