What is creativity anyway?

Observations on creativity, AI, Retail Media, consciousness, and pizza.

Sep 11, 2025

Welcome back to Observations, which takes you behind the scenes of my work at Scandinavian MIND, into the development of my dream house, and inside my reading life.

A small secret to share: we’re working on a new print edition of Scandinavian MIND. It’s been almost three years since the last one (with Sana Labs founder Joel Hellermark on the cover), and now we’re giving it another go. If you’re curious about being part of it, let me know.

The theme of the issue is creativity and its meaning in an increasingly AI-driven world. Which also happens to be the focus of this week’s column.

See you next week.

IN THIS NEWSLETTER

Weekly column: What is creativity?
Observations from Retail Media Summit
Daniel. C Dennet’s ideas of consciousness
… and more

Be the director, have the idea

Last year, the author Joanna Maciejewska wrote an X-post about AI that was so on point that it became viral for the better part of 2024:

“I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes.”

I think about this when I sit down at a press luncheon and start talking to an old industry acquaintance, a stylist and set designer, who complains about the lack of jobs in the fashion and interior design industries.

– There is less to do? I ask.

– Everything has changed, he continued.

The week before, on stage at the Transformation Conference, we discussed how the fashion industry might benefit from replacing the costly and monotonous work of producing in-season lookbooks and e-commerce photos with AI-generated images. Every time we talk about this, I can’t help but think of how the so-called “creatives” will be affected by this transformation. The army of stylists, photographers, models, make-up artists, bookers, agents, and assistants. Whatever one thinks of fashion’s relentless need for new product imagery, it is clear that these bread-and-butter assignments are at risk.

But here is a provocative question: Is it really creativity that suffers?

Because what is creativity, really?

This is a question I’ve started thinking about deeply over the last few weeks. It has crept up on me throughout all our reporting on how AI and new technologies are affecting creative work. Many times, my colleague Erik Olofsson Haavikko and I have discussed how AI will enhance the role of the director, whether it be a creative director, film director, editorial director, or brand director. Whoever commands and defines the taste and style of a piece of content or an entire company will be a hundred, maybe a thousand times more important. Because when everyone can produce anything at any given moment, using AI chatbots and image generators, what becomes valuable is the one thing that is ultimately scarce: the taste of the taste maker, the unique idea of the deep thinker, the eye of the film visionary, the photographer who knows the difference between a good picture and a great.

The creator who knows when to stop creating and start shipping.

AI can do a lot, and it will do even more. It creeps into the small tasks first. It traces the outline of an object in Photoshop, and it transcribes an interview for the journalist. Then it drafts an entire moodbard, outlines an entire story. Before we know it, every brand or content operation will command an AI machinery that churns out content at a rapid pace. And by the wheel is the creative I’m talking about, the one who knows when the content is “on brand”.

Which brings us back to my friend and the PR luncheon, the freelance artist who once thrived on producing visual stories for brands and magazines. Many independent creatives will struggle to find their way in this new, technologically driven brand landscape. You can’t just be an executor anymore; AI will take that role. You need to be the director of something – a brand, a collection, a personal social channel.

And once you are in charge of your own expression, it will be more critical than ever that you stand for something special. You need a clear intention, an original idea, a unique point of view. In the ideal scenario of how AI will influence creative work, human creativity will stand strong as the backbone of all expression, and the robots and chatbots and image generators will take care of the rest. Echoing the words of music producer, author and AI optimist Rick Rubin:

“Art without meaning is just decoration. The art is in the idea.”

OBSERVATIONS WEEK 37

Visited: Retail Media Summit, hosted by Svensk Handel and moderated by the excellent Jakob Lovén. Retail media is still new territory for me, and going in I was reminded of the early days of Net-a-Porter (and my own Scandinavian MAN), where editorial content met e-commerce. Three hours later, it was clear: retail media isn’t about editorial at all. It’s about ads. Ads on screens in stores, ads popping up in online shops at just the right moment, all powered by the mountains of customer data we sit on. The sharpest critique came from Wouter Hulst, shocked at how far behind Sweden is. The best case study came from Linda Hellström (Siftlab) and Romas Juskevicius (Martailer). Thanks for having me, Svensk Handel.
Read: I’ve Been Thinking by Daniel C. Dennett. Got the Swedish edition as a birthday present from my wife. Dennett is the “four horseman” of atheism I know the least about. He argues that consciousness emerges from physical sparks in the brain. I find myself leaning instead towards panpsychists like Philip Goff, or researchers like Donald Hoffman and Annaka Harris, who suggest consciousness might be a fundamental property of the universe. It’s fascinating how this blurs the line between atheism and religion, opening a kind of middle way where physics and consciousness research point to other states of existence.
Heard: Are We in an AI Bubble? — Kevin Roose and Casey Newton. Annoying voices, yes. Insightful takes, also yes. Worth the listen. Listen on Spotify
Seen: Another birthday present: a 70s lamp by Anders Pehrson for Ateljé Lyktan. The Tube was made with a new way of pressing aluminium, inspired by plumbing pipes. Wonderful backstory and archive photos here.
Experienced: A walk around beautiful Kottlasjön, just minutes from my new home. Early September and people are still swimming. Renovated BBQ stations line the path, and the best bakery on the island — Vattenverket — makes it a must.
Eaten: Pizza at our local spot, Trattoria Dell’Isola. Lukas, the owner, convinced me to try pizza without tomato sauce (is it even pizza?!). I’m sold.