Inefficiency of Art

 "Inefficiency is a part of the creative process. You need detours and dead ends. AI takes all of that away. Efficiency is not the answer. It's a formula, and that is the enemy of art. Formula creates easy fixes that depend on muscle memory. You need days and weeks of inefficiency to break something new." - South African musician Jesse Clegg. 

We were at The Reservoir Bar in Union Square talking about AI b/c some online site announced that ChatGPT had achieved AGI: artificial general intelligence. This is the point where AI can self-learn, self-direct, and figure things out as if it were human. And we were thinking about what that means...for us as creatives, as humans, and lovers of art. Clegg has a brother who works in AI and thinks it's the answer to everything. And while Jesse acknowledges it does some things well (organizing, research, etc.), it kills the very thing that gives art texture, weight, and tension. All those things that make art ripple with life. 

From September 2025 to August 2026, I was working on the Silicon Valley TV legal drama "Cupertino." In the writers' room, we had many of these debates. No writer thought AI could replace them. But many thought egotistical tech CEOs would be delusional enough to convince the entertainment execs that they could save money, get rid of creatives, and increase profit. And the fear was that once 'this thing' was broken, it would be impossible to repair. Because Wall Street HATES inefficiency. They hate creative pontifications, debates, delays, and all those things that slow-cook art and make it vibrate. 

When I was at Northwestern, I decided to make authentic New Orleans gumbo from scratch. I found a recipe online, and the first part of it was preparing the roux, or the bland, flour-based foundation of the dish. The instructions said to stir the roux...for 2 hrs!!! I read the instructions a few times: 'Is that a smudge or a misprint? I know they didn't write two hours.' I checked other recipes, and it was around 90 min to 2 hrs. Holy eff!! But I might as well try to do things right. So I stirred that freaking roux for 2 hours. Slow, steady, constant. Never stirring so slowly that it starts to stick, never stirring so fast that it froths. Then I made the rest of the gumbo, and the total time took about 4-5 hrs.  I set it out at the annual ISRC international dinner, and it FLEW. Completely consumed in minutes, and it took me most of my day to cook!! Ppl came up to me and said, 'That was THE best gumbo I have ever tasted.' Huh, I wondered if it was the roux process.

Years later I made gumbo again. I found a 'better' recipe where the roux only took 20-30 min. 'Thank God! I do NOT need to be spraining my wrists!' I made the quick gumbo and...it wasn't the same. It had all the same ingredients, but it was missing something: time. It was missing that inefficiency, the slowness, the un-capitalist, non-immediate roux that the entire dish sits on top of as a foundation. Overall, the gumbo was fine, and if you didn't know what slow-cooked tastes like, you wouldn't notice what was missing. You would just feel like, 'My grandmother lied to me about gumbo being amazing. This is just seafood soup.'

Now when I look online for gumbo, most recipes put roux stirring at 30-45 min. Some even say you can cook it in the oven so you don't have to stand over a stove slaving away. Have we really figured out a better way, or are the old recipes dying b/c ppl refuse to commit to the time b/c it feels wasteful and inefficient?

I grew up eating instant grits. One day my grandmother made Southern grits...slow. It tasted like it was from another planet, another dimension of buttery cream, dense layers. After tasting that, it was hard to go back to instant grits. As I get older, I find myself purchasing the slow grits that take 30-45 min. I want to taste that slow heat and time.