In general, brainstorming with a machine feels odd, yet oddly familiar. It’s like having a teammate who never stops coming up with new ideas. With any type of prompt, no matter how odd, short, generic or ambiguous, Generative AI will produce something in response, with a reply that can be either brilliant or just a stream of cliché ideas.
Its speed is the first thing to catch your interest, being almost intoxicating. The moment you enter your initial idea, AI already has ten different suggestions ready for you, so you skip the tiresome step of idea formation. But then comes the real work: deciding which ideas have depth and which are just noise. Just because AI can tirelessly generate ideas and concepts, it doesn’t mean that it knows the difference between a meaningful thought and a mix of gibberish, meaning that that responsibility still falls to you.
If you observe AI’s delivery of ideas, the contrast between human judgement and plain generation of content becomes even more noticeable. When working with a team of human members, the “failed” ideas are the ones that keep the conversation running. Even though they can lead to intense discussions, these ideas spark debates and guide the team to better and stronger outcomes, assisting the brainstorming session to achieve the best possible result. AI, by contrast, just keeps producing, indifferent to whether it strikes gold or nonsense. And if you try to correct it over an absurd suggestion, it just accepts your criticism and moves on, without even remotely debating your thought process.
This lack of debate can have both advantages and disadvantages. On one hand, there is a feeling of freedom when you can explore your ideas freely, without getting interrupted or being judged. On the other hand, that makes you the only person responsible for recognizing value, and for every refinement, adjustment and decision needed. AI acts as an idea enhancer, and its concepts don’t amount to a breakthrough unless you take the time to consider them.
What I’ve found through using AI is that handling it as a conversation partner makes sessions more impactful. If I keep asking, refining and challenging its outputs, it ends up expanding my imagination rather than replacing it, as it sometimes reflects possibilities I haven’t yet considered, making me rethink assumptions and spot new directions to follow. Although AI can endlessly generate new ideas, only its human users can turn them into something truly perceptive. However, that leaves me wondering: As machines are being used increasingly more to amplify our thinking, how do we define the line between inspiration and invention?
