CREATIVITY REIMAGINED
How Do We Keep Our Humanity in the Age of AI?
My answer starts with the urgent need to re-imagine our creativity for an age of complexity.
Author · Advisor · Professor · Entrepreneur · Producer · Pianist
MY PURPOSE
We are living through the most technologically significant shift in human cognition since the printing press.
AI can now reason, compose, and create. The question is no longer what machines can do.
it's what we choose to do with our unique human capabilities.
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I believe creativity is not a mood or an impulse, but rather a discipline.
And in a world of accelerating complexity, that discipline needs to be completely reimagined.
Not optimised. Reimagined.
That's the work I've spent four decades doing.
And it's never mattered more than now.
THE JOURNEY
The four pillars that support my approach to creativity
Where creativity meets complexity.
01
Mastering
the How
Creativity as a teachable, learnable discipline.
02
Creative Mindset
The inner work of thinking differently. Discernment, empathy, struggle, awe.
03
AI & the Future
of Creativity
Protecting what makes us human when machines get smart. Cultivating what I call the 'human premium.'
04
The Polymath's Advantage
Thinking across boundaries. The career that refuses categories leveraging poly cognitive and polyvalent capabilities.
Explore John’s Creative Approach
MR CREATIVITY
"Mr. Creativity. If Orsen Welles and Peter Drucker were to mate, the offspring would resemble John Kao, a serial innovator."
The Economist
Read some of my writing
SELECTED WRITING
FORBES
Disruption or Discontinuity:
Why the Difference Matters
Why the language we use to describe change shapes our ability to respond to it.
FORBES
What Are Meta- proficiencies And Why Do They Matter?
Metaproficiencies are necessary in an increasingly disrupted world of work. But what are they?
POLYMATH OPED
We Are Not Ready for the World We Have Made
Our age of interconnected crises demands a new kind of mind and we need to start cultivating it now. Pillar - The Polymaths Advantage
FOLLOW THE JOURNEY
Books, learning experiences, a growing body of influential work, and a community of people reimagining creativity for a new era.
What I am working on, what I am thinking about
SUBSTACK
ONGOING
Yale: Finding Yourself in the Future of Creativity
Designed for aspiring entrepreneurs, future leaders, and innovators, this course expands the domain of creativity by considering innovations in areas such as generative AI, brain biology, and cognitive science, as well as their impact on personal as well as professional agendas.
ONGOING
Conference Chair on Human Intelligence at the American Academy in Rome
A deep dive bringing together historians, designers, thinkers and strategists to explore the past, present, and future of human intelligence.
IN DEVELOPMENT
The Human Premium: How to Cultivate What Makes Us Human in the Age of AI
Inspired by McLuhan, Kao's forthcoming book argues that the real question is whether we keep getting better at being human.
JOHN KAO
About John
John Kao has spent four decades working across creativity, technology, and education. He launched the creativity course at Harvard Business School, produced award-winning films and Broadway theatre, built technology companies, and now teaches at Yale, where his students study what it means to stay human in the age of AI. The Economist called him "Mr. Creativity."
Keynotes, advisory, and creative facilitation.
GET IN TOUCH
For speaking engagements, strategic advisory, or collaboration inquiries.