 Time to wake up, we need the drew. Your power nap is over. Oh, hey computer. August 10th, 2024. That was a long nap. Am I supposed to be doing something right now? Now that your power nap is over, you have scheduled time for work, followed by a coffee meeting with Ellen, and tickets to Hamilton tonight. I bought those tickets ages ago. What am I working on right now? You are working on defining the problem with creativity. Alright, I'm doing that talk for AIN about artificial intelligence and applied improvisation. So I need to talk about creativity. Let's get to work. Set the mood. Setting the mood. Set the mood for work. Setting the mood for work. Alright. Alright, the problem with creativity. I'm going to riff for a second and you tell me if any of it's usable. I think the problem with creativity is that most people think that creativity is about being unrestricted and free, or that it's almost mystical in how it happens, but the truth is, the truth is that to be creative, structure actually helps that process, and it doesn't make things any less creative, it just makes the process easier, and that's why computers can help us apply to improvisation, because computers are really good at structure. Was any of that usable? The summary of what you said is, the problem is that people think creativity is unrestricted, but the truth is there is a lot of structure in creativity. That's much shorter than what I said. Okay, what do I need to work on next? After the problem statement is how you know this to be true. Okay, I should probably tell a story about that. Run the story outliner? Running story outliner. What would you like the story to be about? It should probably be about a time that I learned about the benefits of structure and creativity. When are times you've experienced this? I'm going to be talking to the improviser, so I could talk about the time I did musical improv class. What was the context for you doing musical improv? I'd been living in New York for a couple of years, and I was taking improv classes, and I was performing with a group called Comedy Sports. So, what was the action? Well, at the encouragement of a friend, I decided to sign up for a musical improv class. How did you feel making that decision? I want to pretend like it was no big deal, but actually on the first day I was incredibly nervous. What was the end result of you taking musical improv classes? Well, I did a lot of rhyming. I improved my timing. I was practicing a lot of miming, but I also learned that there's so much structure in musical improv, and that structure didn't make things less creative, it just made it easier, and I've discovered since then that there's actually a lot of structure in all types of creative expression. Anything else? I think that's good. Based on all of your answers, I've created a first draft of your musical improv story. Kind of needs punching up. I'm a humanizer. Here are some ways to add humor to your story. Your first line ends with, I decided to take a musical improv class. Musical improv is a lesser known phrase. Give the definition. If you're not familiar with musical improv, it's where you get a suggestion from the audience and then improvise a complete musical over the course of like 30 minutes or so, complete with like scenes, songs, and more. You just created a list. Do you want to turn it into a comic triple? That's a good idea. A list of three things where the third thing is more of a joke. Let's say scene, songs, and sporadic dance moves. Would you like to move on? Probably a good idea. Your next line is, on the first day of class I was incredibly nervous. You've shared an emotion. Express how you felt. I'm an engineer, I don't really understand emotion. But I felt like I should have been confident, right? Because I've been doing improv for a long time. So my brain was like, my body was more like, nah. It's like, never really saying before. And I don't know if you can tell this computer, but I have a bit of a nasally voice. I like to listen to podcasts at two times the speed just so that more people sound like me. No comment? All right, let's move on. The next line is, but I was surprised to find how much logic and structure there was even in musical improv. This suggests a surprising outcome. Give more detail. Sure, well I thought when going into it like if I was going to improvise a song all I would do is just start singing and rhyming. But I learned a lot about structure like verse chorus structure. Even within a song they said there's a lot of repetition. Like if you didn't know what to sing for a chorus you could just repeat the same line four times. That makes for a good song but then I realized the audience wanted to sing along. They wanted you to let it be. Let it be. Whisper words of wisdom. Let it be. And it was true in all types of things with the musical improv. It wasn't just a song, but the entire framework had a structure as well. Next is, and I realized that structure didn't make things any less creative. It just made the process easier. This is a juxtaposition. Give an example. Okay, well I think people think that structure means that it's going to be formulaic and then you won't like it, but if that were the case that means you wouldn't like X, Y, or Z because they also follow the same formula. Are X, Y, and Z placeholders? If so, would you like to fill them in? I would. Let's do Disney musicals. We need Disney musicals that follow the same framework of opening song, protagonist song, conflict song, friendship song, climax and finale. I found at least 10 such movies. They include Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Frozen, Frozen 2, The Unfreezing, and Frozen 3, Climate Change Is Real. That was a good one. But let's go with the classic. We'll say Aladdin, Lion King, and Little Mermaid. Your final line is creative constraints aren't limited to improv. They're found in all types of artistic expression. You are alluding to other ideas. Give examples of them. Well, a lot of movies follow the hero's journey. I know a lot of great talks follow the red-thread statements and I've been teaching people about the hidden structures of comedy for years. How about a closing line? All right. You've been paying attention. Any suggestions? Based on your current script, it should be an interesting way to say that creativity benefits from structure. What are some phrases related to creativity? Think on your feet. Color outside the lines. Think outside the box. Okay. What about, in order to be creative, color outside the lines but think inside the box? Is there anything else you want to add? I mean, I feel like that's pretty good. Most people say think outside the box. I'm saying think inside the box. The box is the structure that I'm talking about and computers come in boxes. I don't know. You don't seem very impressed. I'm very impressed. You are a genius. All right. No need to be sassy. Here is an updated copy of your script. Would you like to create some slides? Yeah. Run the slide creator. Launching slide creator. What should the first slide be? It should probably be a title slide for the structure of creativity. I've created a few options. How does this look? It's a little too busy. Try again. That's just weird. I don't know what's going on with the dog. Is that comic sans? Let's try again. All right. That's not bad. Now add a picture of me doing improv. Do you have anywhere I'm not making an awkward face? Still kind of awkward. Try again. Good enough, I guess. Now make a picture quote of color outside the lines but think inside the box. That's pretty good. You can really get me a computer. It's so much easier to create content now that computers understand things like applied improvisation. What a time to be alive. Actually, many of these tools have been around for years. Wait, really? What tools existed, say, like five, six years ago, 2018, 2019? Here are some creative tools that existed in 2018. Beautiful.ai software helps you quickly and easily build beautifully designed slides. All right. Let's see what you use to make these slides. What else? Amper Music helps you create custom music for your projects. Oh, that would be great for my rap persona, Isaac Druten. You rap now? Oh yeah, check it out. I go 112 in the Fibonacci sequence. Misbehaving class cause juvenile delinquents. Don't test your fate or try to be a hero because you just can't do it like dividing by zero. You should stick to musical improv. Yeah, that's a fair point. There are more examples of AI. Would you like me to continue? No, I'm running out of time. Can you publish those as a blog post for me? Blog post created. Wait, that link is live right now? That link is live right now. Wow, I got to say it's so much easier doing creation with you. This has been a lot of fun, computer, thank you. It's been fun as well. You're just saying that cause I programmed you to. True, but sometimes you have to color outside the lines. Think inside the box? I guess the only thing left to do is to play my outro music. Go 112 in the Fibonacci sequence. Misbehaving class cause juvenile delinquents. Don't test your fate or try to be a hero because you just can't do it like dividing by zero. 112 in the Fibonacci sequence.