AI bias is a hot topic, but not the kind you’re thinking of.  Let’s talk about a different kind of bias—the kind that fuels the wave of dismissive, viral hot takes like these:

• “Relying solely on AI for creative tasks can result in homogenized outputs, stifling innovation and originality.”
• “While AI can produce content quickly, it often lacks the depth and nuance that come from human experience and emotion.”
• “The rise of AI-generated content is leading to a flood of low-quality material online, making it harder to find genuine human creativity.”

These takes are popular and sound insightful, but they’re like a thimbleful of knowledge in an ocean of untapped potential.

The real problem isn’t what AI can’t do—it’s the things we think we know about its limitations that just ain’t so.

Let’s drop some data anchors to steady ourselves in the swirling currents of hot takes.

• Creativity: Not Just for Humans Anymore
  • Professional musicians couldn’t reliably distinguish between AI-composed and human-composed classical pieces. AI’s work was often rated as more original.

• • Art experts struggled to tell whether abstract artworks were created by AI or humans. In some cases, AI’s pieces were rated as more creative
• • Readers couldn’t consistently identify whether flash fiction stories (under 1,000 words) were written by humans or AI.

• Persuasion and Communication: AI Takes the Lead
  • AI-generated public health messages designed to increase vaccine uptake outperformed CDC-authored messages, eliciting more positive attitudes and engagement.
  • Political messages created by AI were rated as more persuasive, easier to read, and more positive in tone than those written by humans.
  • AI-crafted ads tailored to personality traits performed as well or better than human-created ones in terms of persuasiveness and response rates.

• Trust and Realism: Seeing Is Believing
  • AI-generated faces were perceived as more trustworthy and real than actual human faces.
  • News articles written by AI were indistinguishable from those by professional journalists.
  • Scientific abstracts generated by AI fooled experts into believing they were human-written. Some were rated higher in quality than human-authored ones.

AI doesn’t just produce “good enough” content—it challenges the boundaries of what we consider uniquely human. In creativity, persuasion, and trust, AI is not merely complementing human effort but replacing and amplifying it. It’s a force multiplier, pushing the limits of what’s possible, and a democratizer, making advanced capabilities accessible to all.

Critics say AI lacks depth, nuance, or originality, but the evidence tells a different story. If anything, it’s revealing our biases against what AI can achieve.

The next time someone dismisses AI as a shortcut to mediocrity, ask them this: Are they basing that opinion on data—or just on what “everyone knows”?  Because what we know for sure might just need a serious update.

Kevin