"Never the answer" Shark Tank investor Mark Cuban remarks about using AI creatively

During an SXSW panel announcing the partnership between ABC's Shark Tank and payment processing platform Clover, billionaire investor Mark Cuban shared his unconventional perspective on artificial intelligence.

"AI is never the answer; AI is the tool," Cuban declared emphatically.

He explained that while AI can handle tasks like writing scripts and editing videos, it lacks the crucial ability to determine what makes a good or bad story.

"You need to be creative. Whatever skills you have, AI can amplify them," Cuban advised.

The Shark Tank star, known for his tech investments and ownership of the Dallas Mavericks, emphasized that young professionals need experience to properly leverage AI's capabilities.

Those expecting overnight mastery of skills like writing or video editing through AI alone will ultimately fall behind competitors who understand the technology's proper role as an enhancement to existing talents rather than a replacement for human creativity.

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Shark Tank’s Mark Cuban talks about AI-human partnership

Mark Cuban's central message challenges the notion that AI can serve as a shortcut around developing foundational skills.

The billionaire investor stressed that AI works best as a complementary tool rather than a standalone solution. Users need sufficient experience to fact-check results and provide quality control oversight. The technology excels at amplifying existing skills rather than creating them from scratch.

"The new recipe for professional success is starting with your pre-existing skills, talents, and experiences, and then using AI to hone your work and make some of your processes faster," Cuban explained.

This approach represents a significant shift from the early AI hype that suggested the technology might replace human expertise entirely. Instead, Cuban envisions a partnership where human creativity and judgment remain essential components.

Despite his cautious approach to AI implementation, Mark Cuban delivered a stark warning about the risks of avoiding the technology altogether.

Your use of AI "could be the difference between [your competition] getting ahead of you or not," he cautioned. This competitive advantage applies across industries and career stages, from students to established professionals.

Mark Cuban's perspective aligns with broader trends in how tech executives utilize AI platforms. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang both use AI to streamline mundane administrative tasks like email composition, document summarization, and speech outlining.

Huang has taken this approach further, employing AI chatbots as tutors for subjects like digital biology.

"AI programs can teach you things — anything you like. Help you program, help you write, help you analyze, help you think, help you reason," Huang said in a January YouTube interview.

Explaining:

"All of those things [are] going to really make you feel empowered and I think that's going to be our future."

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Mark Cuban’s advice for teenagers

Mark Cuban offered particularly practical advice for younger generations looking to capitalize on AI's potential.

If he were a teenager today, Cuban told CNBC Make It that he would "learn how to write prompts for AI chatbots, then teach my friends how to use the prompts to improve their school papers."

His entrepreneurial instincts extend beyond peer tutoring:

"Then, I would go to businesses, particularly small- to medium-sized businesses that don't understand AI yet. Doesn't matter if I'm 16, I'd be teaching them as well."

This guidance mirrors recommendations from Stanford professor Steve Blank, who describes AI as "a force multiplier to everything you do." Blank suggests using AI platforms like ChatGPT for rapid business ideation and competitive analysis:

"I have Idea X, has anybody done it? Why hasn't [it] worked? Where should I best do this?"

Cuban's central thesis positions AI literacy as perhaps the most critical skill for future success, provided it's built upon existing expertise and creative thinking.

This method offers a more complex view of AI's function than previous forecasts of total automation or mass job loss. In Mark Cuban's ideal future, artificial intelligence will be used to supplement human creativity and judgment rather than to replace it.

The takeaway for experts in all fields is straightforward: master your foundational skills before discovering how AI may enhance your abilities. Technology is a tool that increases the power of expertise, not a way to go past it.

Mark Cuban's viewpoint provides both comfort regarding the ongoing worth of human ingenuity and a challenge to acquire the AI literacy required to stay competitive in a market that is changing quickly. This is true as companies use AI in their operations more and more.

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Watch Shark Tank on ABC Fridays at 8/7c and stream next day on Hulu.