As artificial intelligence reshapes creative industries, author and advertising executive Nadim Sadek argues for collaboration over competition. His second book Quiver, Don’t Quake, following 2023’s Shimmer, Don’t Shake, introduces the concept of AI as “allied intelligence” that can unlock universal creative expression.
You coined the term “panthropic” to describe AI. What does that mean?
The panthropic is a reframing. People have been warning us not to anthropomorphize AI, but I think of it as a much more beautiful thing—the reservoir of all of our thinking and feeling and expressions and accomplishments and wisdoms and fallibilities. Our world’s knowledge and ability to commune is available at almost no cost to almost everybody on Earth.
How does this differ from viewing AI as artificial intelligence?
I prefer “allied intelligence.” It helps you. We have system one and system two—we’re able to feel and to think. AI can only think, but it can think often much quicker than we can. So we have the impulse, the spark, the sense, the gut feeling, and through conversation with allied intelligence, we can articulate what that creative thought actually is.
Why focus on creativity when AI safety dominates headlines?
There are eight billion people. We should be humble enough to admit that everybody has creative thoughts. Residing within everybody on Earth is an interesting creative thought. Wouldn’t we all be richer for having it better articulated? Our inclination to present AI as the baddie when we’re the goodies is just part of the same trope. What’s the most common narrative in all our storytelling? It’s the goodies and the baddies.
How should people interact with AI to foster creativity?
It’s not about making things simpler or faster or more efficient. It’s about making it possible for everybody to feel like they’ve liberated and expressed their creativity properly through iterative dialogue with an intelligence. We have been wrecked by 20 years of Google, where you say, here’s my question, give me your answer. AI should be Socratic—you can actually say: “You’re feeding me crap. What’s the antithesis to the argument you just gave me?”
How do publishers compete in an AI-driven world where everyone is so prolifically creative?
Creativity is the lifeblood of the industry and if AI is a tool to enhance that, then every major publishing house should have its own iteration of an LLM (large language model) and compete with each other—and everyone else—based on the strength of their AI tools for their content creators.
How much AI did you use writing this book?
I would have a thought, iterate a bit, think about it, and then I’d write it. The book’s co-authored between me and the panthropic. I asked for evidence, neuroscientific underpinnings. Nobody’s written about the psychology of AI, so I had thoughts, looked for evidence, and tested arguments through lots of conversations.
Why publish a traditional book instead of an interactive AI experience?
Parameters force a discipline of thinking. The difference between a panthropic conversation and reading a book is that the panthropic conversation is limitless and amorphous, while the book is morphic—it has a proper shape. Someone can pick it up and say “what is this panthropic” and then go ask ChatGPT about it.
Nadim Sadek will be in conversation with Bloomsbury CEO Nigel Newton in a session, How Creativity Can Embrace AI, on the International Stage, tomorrow at 3.30 p.m.
