We’re so used to trying things for ourselves that it seems bizarre to imagine us ever stopping. And yet, more and more, it’s becoming clear that artificial intelligence can relieve us of the burden of trying and trying again. A.I. systems make it trivially easy to take an existing thing and ask for a new iteration. The technology is still developing, and yet already an A.I. can give you a custom recipe based on a photo of what’s in your fridge. Songwriting A.I.s can generate version after version of a new tune; image-creating A.I.s can tweak an image endlessly. Is the automated exploration of alternatives a good substitute for the organic equivalent? Is this kind of variation-creation the same thing as human creativity? These are important questions to ask because, as A.I. grows more powerful, we will be tempted more and more to give up in advance and let it figure things out for us.