There is no such thing as an artificial mistake. Your screw ups, failures, and gaffes are all 100% natural, organic, and free-range.

“To err is human; to forgive, divine.”

Alexander Pope, “An Essay on Criticism”

We can easily forgive a singer whose voice cracks with emotion at the climax of a heartbreaking ballad. We think it’s hilarious if an actor on Saturday Night Live breaks character and gets the giggles. We can visit the Leaning Tower of Pisa and find it captivating – despite the fact that someone messed up when building it.

Maybe an artist who offers up imperfect work is being generous. They give us the opportunity to be “divine” through our acceptance and appreciation.

And maybe the mistakes are part of what make it real art. Art created by a human.

We’ve all heard about how many times Thomas Edison failed at inventing the electric light bulb before finally getting it right. And we know that Abraham Lincoln lost a ton of elections for public office before becoming one of America’s most-celebrated presidents. Their failures contributed to their greatness.

When your mind is open to the possibilities, mistakes can also lead to unexpected discoveries.

X-ray technology was a complete accident. Coca-Cola was created because its inventor was trying to find a cure for his morphine addiction. The inventor of the pacemaker mistakenly installed the wrong part on a device he meant to record heartbeats. Instead, it turned into a device that’s kept countless hearts beating.

Artificial intelligence can do a lot of things. It even makes mistakes some times.

What AI cannot do is look at its mistakes and say… “Hmm. Well, that’s interesting. I wonder… “

Of course, we’re a lot less forgiving when the AI is incorrect. As generative AI technology improves, it will move closer and closer to always providing the “right answer.” Accurate, perfect, and mistake-free. What if that only leads us to a sea of sameness? Sounds pretty boring to me.

It’s possible that, in the age of artificial intelligence, perfection will become a commodity. But even if we program AI to make creative mistakes for the sake of originality, it will defy the very definition of a mistake. They would happen intentionally. My bet is that we’ll be able to tell the difference.

So, embrace your faults, failures, and flubs. They are what separate us from the machines.

Image credit: By Florian Hirzinger – http://www.fh-ap.com – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39171135