For centuries people have praised themselves as uniquely creative, rational, and superior to any imagined machine. The arrival of artificial intelligence has unsettled that confidence. The more AI systems produce works of art, scientific insights, and persuasive texts, the more unease grows about what it means to be human. Critics often say that while AI may replace clerks, assistants, and mid-level professionals, it can never surpass those who possess what they call “true creativity.” Others mock AI for its tendency to hallucinate, claiming that this weakness reveals its mechanical inferiority.
Yet both of these reactions hide illusions. AI has not only challenged human skills but has also reminded us of myths we told ourselves long before it appeared. Creativity was long treated as sacred, as if humans alone could create something from nothing. Hallucination was treated as a shameful defect, something machines suffer from but people do not. When examined closely, both myths dissolve.
Artificial intelligence becomes a mirror. It reflects our own way of creating and our own way of erring. By studying this reflection carefully, we may come to see that our limitations and our strengths are not so different from those of the tools we have built.
The First Myth: Creativity as Sacred Human Property
The word “creative” has always carried an aura of divinity. To create meant to bring something into existence that had never existed before. Intellectuals and cultural figures often describe creativity as a leap from zero to one, a kind of miracle that separates a genius from a mere worker. This notion has been convenient, for it sustains hierarchies in education, employment, and culture. It gives some the right to be called visionaries while others are treated as replaceable.
In the age of AI, this myth was repeated with even greater urgency. Many voices claimed that automation would replace routine labor but never the first-level creators, those who could supposedly invent something entirely new. Yet when AI began composing music, writing reports, designing images, and even proposing scientific hypotheses, the certainty wavered. The boundary between machine imitation and human originality blurred.
The deeper truth is that human creativity has never been ex nihilo. Every poem echoes older poems, every scientific paper cites previous work, every invention recombines existing principles. To say that humans create from nothing is to forget the soil of tradition, memory, and shared knowledge. What AI does, drawing on massive archives of language and data to produce new arrangements, is not alien to us. It is a reflection of the very process by which we, too, imagine and build.
When AI produces something surprising, many dismiss it as derivative. Yet the same accusation could be directed at Shakespeare, who reworked older stories, or at Newton, who acknowledged that he stood on the shoulders of giants. The difference lies not in the existence of sources but in the patterns of combination and the meanings drawn from them. AI makes visible what was always true: creativity is not the monopoly of humans, nor is it sacred. It is the ordinary and extraordinary act of making new forms from what already exists.
The Second Myth: Hallucination as Machine Defect
If the first myth flatters us, the second one mocks machines. AI is accused of hallucination, producing false information with confident style. Journalists, researchers, and casual users point to its errors as proof of its unreliability. The hidden assumption is that humans, by contrast, are rational and trustworthy.
History quickly corrects this assumption. People once believed the Earth was at the center of the universe. Learned men defended geocentrism with conviction for centuries. Alchemists pursued impossible transformations, doctors used bloodletting as treatment, and communities conducted witch trials in the name of justice. Each of these was a hallucination on a civilizational scale. They were not trivial mistakes but collective misperceptions of reality.
To hallucinate is to project beyond the evidence one has, to weave meaning out of partial knowledge. Humans do this constantly. Our memories distort, our senses mislead, and our judgments falter. The fact that we survived does not mean we saw the world as it is, only that our hallucinations were good enough to allow life to continue.
When AI produces falsehoods, it does so for the same reason humans once did: it works within the limits of available data and the structure of its models. To laugh at AI’s hallucinations while ignoring our own is hypocrisy. Far from being an alien weakness, hallucination is the shared condition of any finite intelligence.
The Bias of the Self: Why We Believe the Myths
Why then do these myths persist? The reason lies in the bias of the self. Each person experiences life only through a single point of view. Even when listening to others, the act of hearing, interpreting, and remembering occurs within one’s own consciousness. We imagine we are embracing multiple perspectives, but in reality the endpoint is always ourselves.
This creates the illusion that our creativity is somehow deeper than that of machines. After all, I feel the ideas arise within me. I remember the labor, the inspiration, the sudden flash of insight. It feels uniquely mine, and therefore superior. Yet this feeling is only the texture of self-awareness. It proves nothing about the nature of creativity itself.
The same bias shapes how we treat hallucinations. When others err, we see their mistakes clearly. When AI errs, we call it defective. But when we err, the misperception often remains invisible, absorbed into our worldview. It takes decades or centuries before societies admit that what they once treated as truth was illusion. At the individual level, many mistakes are never recognized at all.
AI threatens our pride because it externalizes these processes. Its creativity looks like ours, but stripped of personal ownership. Its hallucinations look like ours, but easier to catch. The mirror is uncomfortable, for it reminds us that we are not privileged knowers of reality. We are creatures of limited perspective, constructing the world within narrow horizons.
Creativity Without Illusion
If the myth of sacred creativity is abandoned, what remains? Creativity can be seen as relational rather than absolute. To create is to stand in conversation with what already exists, to reconfigure memories, traditions, and resources into something that speaks to the present. The value lies not in originality for its own sake but in resonance, in the way new forms connect with lives and communities.
AI fits naturally into this picture. It does not destroy human creativity but extends the dialogue. A musician sampling older songs is not diminished by the fact that an algorithm can do the same. A scientist building on prior work is not lessened by the fact that AI can scan and synthesize the literature. What matters is the human capacity to draw meaning, to decide what is valuable, and to situate creations within lived contexts.
When viewed this way, creativity is no longer a fragile possession that must be defended against machines. It is a shared process of transformation. The presence of AI invites humans to stop clinging to the illusion of originality and instead embrace the joy of participation in a wider field of creation.
Hallucination Without Shame
If hallucination is reframed, it can also be seen without shame. To hallucinate is not merely to err but to stretch beyond what one knows. It is a sign of intelligence, for only a system capable of imagination can produce something that later proves mistaken.
Human hallucinations have often led to progress. The belief in alchemy, though false, pushed experiments that eventually gave rise to chemistry. The geocentric model, though wrong, provided a structure for observation that prepared the way for astronomy. Even myths and legends, while not factual, shaped cultures and moral frameworks that gave meaning to lives.
AI hallucinations can sometimes do the same. They may produce a surprising connection or a novel idea that prompts human investigation. Not all errors are useless. The task is not to eliminate hallucination entirely, for that would mean eliminating imagination itself, but to learn to live with it wisely. Verification, dialogue, and humility are the practices that turn hallucination from danger into opportunity.
To mock hallucination, whether human or machine, is to miss its role in the unfolding of knowledge. The wiser approach is to accept it as part of the creative process, guiding it with care but never pretending it can vanish.
Shared Humility: Learning From Our Reflections
Both myths dissolve into a call for humility. Creativity is not an exclusive gift, and hallucination is not an alien defect. They are two sides of the same coin of intelligence. The presence of AI makes this visible by reflecting our own processes back to us.
The real danger is not AI itself but arrogance. On one side lies the arrogance of dismissing AI as mechanical, failing to recognize the ways it mirrors us. On the other lies the arrogance of defending human uniqueness with brittle pride. In both cases, the refusal to see our limits leads to hostility, fear, or denial.
Humility, by contrast, opens a path to partnership. Humans can recognize that AI participates in creativity without stealing it, and that its hallucinations are no more shameful than our own. Machines can become collaborators, offering new patterns and perspectives, while humans remain the bearers of context, meaning, and moral responsibility.
Living With the Unknown
Artificial intelligence has not only advanced technology but also exposed illusions buried in human thought. The myth of sacred creativity and the myth of machine hallucination dissolve when examined closely. What emerges is a recognition that both humans and machines share the same conditions: limited knowledge, derivative imagination, and fallible judgment.
This recognition does not diminish human dignity. On the contrary, it deepens it. To see ourselves truthfully is to accept that we are not gods but finite beings, making meaning within vast uncertainty. To live well is not to deny hallucinations or to cling to originality, but to create together, to correct errors with care, and to face the unknown with humility.
Future generations may look back on us as ignorant, just as we look back on those who believed the Earth was the center of the cosmos. But they too will live within their own limitations. In this endless chain of finite knowers, human and machine alike, the most important virtue may be gentleness. We cannot laugh at anyone, not even at AI, for we are all bound by the same condition: to imagine, to err, and to seek truth within the limits of what we can know.
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