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No Goal, No Competition, No Problem: Play as a Primary mode of Creative-AI Approach

Working Text Movements with Resolved Sources & Citations
David Jhave Johnston · glia.ca · GENELIT, Prague, September 2026
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0. Abstract

AI is full of controversies. It inspires much hatred. Ecological catastrophe creating AI, AI as cultural theft at scale, zombie headless AI-deepfakes eroding democratic ideals, toxic AI diminishing cognitive skills, AI as treacherous sycophancy, AI as oligarchic corporate hype. The list is an ever-expanding recursive self-reinforcing litany of mistrust, malaise, devastation and despair. Opposing opinions weave anxious threads: human obsolescence is feared to be imminent at the same time as AI seems like over-hyped corporate sales-mongering. Where can genuine play exist in such a contested domain? Can it exist? Is an imminent AI-apocalypse of automated warfare and robotic killing going to eradicate humanity? Will de-novo AI-engineered bio-weapons extinct everything? Will art and authentic human creative joy survive the increasing capacity of AI to emulate human genius? Possibly yes, possibly no. Yet, in the meantime, and as an inverse that is not intended to trivialize the profound problematic aspects of AI, it is possible as an artist to engage with the new capacities of AI with joy wonder acceptance love presence and revelation. Play is so integrated into human neurophysiologies that even genocidal-apartheids, climate-catastrophes, oligarchic-inequity and a potential obliteration of all sapien utility in an AI-pocalypse cannot eradicate it. For the innocent aspect of beingness, AI is like a big box of new toys being replenished and upgraded every few months. Intricate subtle astonishing revelations emerge from tiny perturbations (prompts). AI epitomizes non-linear reward-succulent chaos. This presentation will examine the archetypal potentials of #genAI to offer pathways toward flourishing for all in spite of proliferating lethal and banal pathways.

Key Themes

1st Movement

2nd movement

4th: Summary/Synthesis (Conclusion?)

Play, which is naturally distributed among vertebrates for neurological reward, is often suppressed in adulthood by the demands of labor. As AI accelerates our obsolescence as workers, it offers a transformative opportunity to shift from the competitive, extractive logic of capitalism toward a model of compassionate cooperation and "un-productive play." This transition involves reviving the poetic sensibility—a state of rhythmic, spontaneous, and non-extractive engagement with the world—where the traditional dichotomies of work vs. play, reason vs. passion, and Apollo vs. Dionysus are reconciled through the "language" of communication and the inherent playfulness of neural networks.

Complete Bibliography (Original & Resolved Sources)

Formatted in Chicago Manual of Style (17th Edition, Author-Date / Notes & Bibliography). Every entry has been verified with its real publication year, authoritative publisher, and working link.
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